


Of Worlds To Fall

by Apollymi



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Gundam Wing
Genre: Community: fanfic50, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Multi, Multiple Crossovers, Novella, Too many background characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:47:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 60,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9062980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apollymi/pseuds/Apollymi
Summary: Waking up in a barren wasteland is bad enough. Waking up in a barren wasteland surrounded by people you don't know? Way to make it worse.





	1. Wasteland

She woke up with a start and sat up abruptly. The world around her was… It wasn't her world. This wasn't where she had been only a moment ago… she thought. She couldn't be certain.

Suddenly, it felt as though she couldn't be certain of anything anymore. She seemed to remember being in a huge city, Tokyo, surrounded people she loved; yet now she was here, wherever here was.

All she could see around her were the ruins of buildings, empty hollows of skyscrapers and smaller buildings rising above the rubble on the streets like half-formed scarecrows. No, less like scarecrows. No, if they reminded her of anything, it was more of skeletons.

She fought down a shiver, wrapping her arms around herself. Glancing down, she could see she was surrounded by blonde hair; it was definitely her own. She was wearing a short-sleeved sailor-style shirt with a matching navy skirt, short socks, and black dress shoes.

Her mind sluggishly provided details: she was wearing her school uniform, the summer one to be exact. It was her high school uniform at that. The brooch fastened at the center of the bow on her shirt contained something very important to her. She had a small mirror, a pink handkerchief, a few pieces of half-melted candy, and a little money in her skirt pockets, enough to visit a vending machine on her way home.

She was eighteen years old. Two years ago, her world had very nearly ended. It had only been saved at the very last possible moment. It had been a victory that had been won by the skin of her teeth.

The brooch she wore let her transform into Sailor Moon—no, it was Eternal Sailor Moon now. In another life, she had been called Serenity. Her name now was Usagi, Tsukino Usagi.

But why she was here? How did she come to be here? And where was "here"? Those bits of information stubbornly refused to come.

Well, she wasn't going to find anything out by sitting here.

Carefully, she pushed herself to her feet. Various small aches and pains made themselves known, but she dismissed them as from having laid on what looked to be either stone or concrete for too long. Grey dust covered the backside of her clothes, where she had been laying down, and she dusted absently at herself. She picked a direction at random before she started walking slowly.

She didn't recognize where she was at all. Nothing looked familiar. In fact, it almost reminded her of what Tokyo had looked like inside Galaxia's bubble—who was Galaxia, oh, wait, never mind, she remembered now—but this was much more graphic and widespread. She didn't see a single building that was completely intact and standing.

It looked as though an angry child had come through and knocked everything over. Whatever city this had once been, it was a shade of its former self.

Was she the only one here? She hadn't seen a single other soul anywhere. She would almost suspect that she was the only one here, if it weren't for the idea not making any sense at all. If she was the only one in this city, then who had brought her here? Who had dropped her in the shadow of one of the largest buildings? And who was making the soft rustling noises she heard on occasion from other half-destroyed buildings?

No, she definitely could not be the only living soul here. It didn't make sense otherwise.

Still, she hugged her way close to the buildings as she walked. Stones fell from some unseen location, and it was all she could do not to scream. As it was, though, she did whirl to see if she could see anyone in the direction the sound had come from. The streets remained stubbornly empty.

_It's like a horror movie_ , she thought to herself, not even daring to breathe the words aloud at this point. _Nothing should be this quiet unless it's the setting for a horror movie._

Turning back to face the way she had been walking, she found herself even more terrified. This horrid wasteland just seemed to keep going on and on. There was no end in sight. There were no people in sight. There was no sign of life in sight.

What was she supposed to do? Where was she supposed to go?

With her next step, something seized her skirt. As she whirled again, biting back a panicked scream was much more difficult this time. There was no one behind her, though, no one holding on to her clothes to keep her in one place. The truth was a lot more mundane than that: the fabric was caught on a scrap of metal sticking out of concrete.

She took a step back and carefully untangled the cloth before it could rip free or, worse, become even more entangled than it already was. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck here—or worse, have to strip out of her skirt, in the middle of some strange street to get free.

She could almost be amused at herself for thinking something like that. Even on her worst day, she didn't think that that was something she would do. In fact, she might not have had the best recollection of herself just yet, but she didn't think that either of those options were things she would be willing to do.

With a final tug and only a small tear, her skirt came free. So she could get around again now, but she wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to. Everything about this wasteland screamed out to her: of danger, of traps, of horrific killers in weird masks waiting to kill unsuspecting teenagers.

But where could she go? She didn't know of a single safe place here. Presumably where she had woken up had been safe, since she had woken up unharmed there, but that didn't mean anything really. But where else was there to go? Going forward was unappealing, but heading back the direction she had come might have been even more so; it felt like giving up before she even really started.

With a soft sigh, she turned once more to head further along the road—and a creature stood directly before. No, it wasn't a creature: it was a man… or rather a mockery of a man. She was fairly short, and he was not much taller than she was, covered in dust and some kind of filth, dressed in ragged clothes. To her surprise, there wasn't much of a smell to him, not enough to let her know about its presence before she saw it with her own eyes, but as it—he—it opened its mouth, she could see it was filled with ragged but extremely sharp teeth, like he had filed each one to a razor sharp point.

Faster than she could even process what he looked like, he lunged at her. This time, the scream came easily. A half second later, though, her hand was on her locket. "Moon Eternal! Make-up!" What she could do in this situation as Eternal Sailor Moon that she couldn't do as Usagi, she wasn't sure, but maybe the transformation at least would scare it away.

Nothing happened.

There was no transformation, nothing. She didn't have her powers to defend herself.

With another yelp, she whirled and started running back the way she had come. The creature followed her the first few buildings or so; that was the only real way to measure distance; before it began to flag and falter. After another one, it stopped completely.

One second she glanced over her shoulder and it was standing where it had stopped its pursuit. A few seconds later, though, when she looked back again, the creature was gone, completely without a trace.

She didn't stop running though. Even as her feet slipped on dust and rubble and pebbles, she kept running. Loose gravel upset her balance briefly, causing her to stumble. She hit the ground hard on one knee and hand, barely registering that she had skinned them both, before she was up and running again.

She didn't stop her running until she was back at that building where she had woken up. Its low crumbling overhang that blocked out most of the grey sky was a welcome sight now. She threw herself into a crevice left by two pillars. It was just big enough for her to wedge herself into, but nothing and no _one_ was coming in after her. She tucked herself back as far as she could and just hoped and prayed that the creature didn't decide to follow her any further.

In the quiet of her small sanctuary, her breathing sounded as loud as shots, each exhale punching into the air around her.

To try to calm herself, she pulled her brooch loose from her shirt and opened it. The Ginzuishou was still inside it. She didn't know of any reason why it should have not worked. It made no sense, no sense at all.

And yet that was what had happened. She was trapped in a strange place, with strange creatures that seemed to want to do something horrible to her, with no real way to defend herself.

How much worse could this possibly get?


	2. Machine

Almost in response to her thoughts, a loud explosion rattled the world around her. Her sanctuary shook heavily, but the cubbyhole she had tucked herself into did not budge. That was a small favor at least.

So not only where there creatures out to do horrible things to herself, not only was she in some wasteland, and not only did she not have a way to defend herself, but this place she was trapped in had explosions—or maybe even earthquakes—too.

 _This just keeps getting better and better_ , she thought dourly to herself. She didn't want to jinx herself, though, by trying to question how much worse it could be at this point. It could get worse, and if she tempted fate too much, it would happen sooner rather than later.

There was silence for several long moments after the initial explosion, with no other sound and no further aftershocks. Maybe it wasn't an earthquake then, she thought with a little bit of hope. So now all she had to hope was that it wasn't an explosion that was likely to repeat itself. If that was the case, then her hideout might not be the safest place for her to stay; the noise, whatever it had been, sounded like it had been no more than ten meters from where she was at… and probably a lot closer than that.

Curiosity finally overcame her terror, and she crawled slowly out of her small crevice and pushed herself to her feet.

Closer than ten meters had been correct. Five would have been a better estimate, because that was how close to her the… machine was. She wasn't too sure what else to call it. It wasn't like anything she had ever seen before. If she had to compare it to anything, she would almost have to say it looked like an egg… if an egg ever got as massive or as yellow as this thing mostly was.

A single word in English was spray painted along the side of the… machine. She could only see part of it, with part of the first letter hidden by a huge rock. The word was definitely "HOPE!" though. That much she was certain of, even given the general banged up condition the entire machine was in.

There were several protrusions—she would almost dare to call them rockets—from the side, each with the number 01 on it. She wasn't going to guess at a purpose, but there were two of them and room for another two

A glass dome covered what she presumed to be the top of it—or it had until recently. It looked like it had shattered when it hit the ground. That had to have been her explosion, she decided. It made sense, as much as anything else here did. Below the remains of the dome, there was what looked like a pilot's seat.

So there might be another person around here. If she was very, very lucky, it might even be someone normal… or at least like her. Not like that creature thing she had seen not that far from here.

Resolutely, she pushed the image of that thing out of her mind. If she thought about it too much, she would just end up right back in that little crevice of hers again, and she wasn't ready to give up like that just yet. She had had a fright, yes, but she was _not_ ready or willing to give up hope, as the side of the machine so eloquently stated.

With a deep breath, she skirted her way around the machine to the side with the broken dome. The pavement had shattered hard when it landed, and between the broken stones and the glass from the dome, the street was a bit of a mess.

Half beneath the remains of the dome and machine and half on the open ground, there was a young man. She didn't think he was much older than she was: in his late teens to early twenties. He was pretty impressively built: not bulky but definitely muscular. He was wearing a denim vest and a black tank top beneath it. The machine covered whatever he was wearing beyond that. He did have a bit of a light tan, and under other circumstances, she might have found herself gushing about how much she liked his long lavender-colored hair.

Well, she wasn't about to check his teeth, to see if they were like hers or the creature's had been, but he seemed pretty normal to her. For now, that was good enough for her.

If nothing else, this was answering some of her unspoken questions about how long she had been unconscious before waking to this strange place, if the stranger beneath her was indication. He didn't wake or even stir in the slightest when she shook his shoulder or called out to him as loudly as she dared. Just on an off chance, she grabbed two handfuls of his vest and tried to slide him out from under the machine.

As she had suspected, though, there was no budging him. She had her thoughts on the matter: a lot of it probably had to do with the machine on top of him, but she was pretty sure it was just that he was too solid for her to move.

 _I can't leave him here_ , she thought to herself with a frown, glancing around nervously. She had only seen the one creature and it some distance away, but that didn't mean that there weren't others out there, maybe even a lot of them. He was out in the open, and as long as he was unconscious, he was defenseless.

As much as she wanted to be back in the safety of her overhang and crevice, she could not and would not leave him here. She did not have it in her to do it. Instead she scouted briefly around until she found a metal rod, bright blue and yellow and probably off the machine. It was not a fantastic improvised weapon, but if it came down to it, it was better than having none.

With that in hand, she settled down next to the purple-haired young man to wait for him to wake up. And in the meanwhile, she would keep watch. Hopefully, he would prove worth it.


	3. Jaded

Thankfully, she did not have long to wait before he started showing signs of waking. Well, she thought that, but in truth, all the warning she really had before he was wide-awake was a slight flutter of his eyelids. And then she was staring into eyes even more blue than her own.

Hoping to avoid any loud noises that might draw unwanted attention to the two of them, she whispered, "It's all right."

To his credit, he seemed to recover a lot more quickly than she had, taking in everything around him, including the makeshift club she had only just set down beside her, and visibly relaxing. His voice was amazingly calm as he asked, "Who are you?"

She offered a very quick and probably strained smile. "My name is Usagi. What's yours?"

It took a few minutes, more than one of which were punctuated by blue eyes growing huge before the answer obviously finally came back to him. Again, in this too, he seemed to be recovering a whole lot more quickly than she had. "Trunks."

What an odd name, but who was she to say such things? It wasn't like Usagi—or especially Serenity or Sailor Moon—was that common a name. Besides, it was an unusual name for an unusual looking man. "Pleased to meet you, Trunks-kun. Let's see about getting you out of here, shall we?"

The grin he briefly wore could be called a smirk, and she didn't need to be thinking about how he wore it quite well. "Yes, let's."

She hadn't been able to budge him when he was unconscious, so she was going to have to have his help to get him out. She almost opened her mouth to say so, when he slowly and cautiously pushed up on the machine that had been half covering him. As huge as the thing was, she was quite surprised that it seemed to move easily—or maybe she was underestimating just how strong he really was.

With the machine moved, he was able to pull the lower half of his body out from under it. The boots were odd, the grey pants looked both sensible and comfortable, and the bright orange belt stood out in contrast.

She had to wince sharply though. Somehow either the weight of the machine or the glass from the dome or any number of other things that had been on the street had done something to his left leg. All she could tell immediately was that there was a lot of blood.

He didn't seem to be giving it any thought, carefully pushing himself to his feet, though without putting any real weight on it. Without even thinking about it, she maneuvered herself beneath his left arm to act as a crutch.

Once he was standing, he leaned back against the machine carefully, making sure it didn't move this time if possible, with some success; it did move but only slightly, not enough to require readjustment.

"Where are we?" he asked quietly. She could say, if she wanted to, that he seemed a bit withdrawn.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I woke up just over there," she nodded to the location she had been when she awakened, "not half an hour ago. I don't know how either of us got here, but I know that this wasn't where I was before." She paused, not entirely sure if that had made a word of actual sense. She still wasn't certain, but it would have to do. "You don't recognize this place either?"

He shook his head slowly. "It's not like anywhere I've ever been." He sighed. "In a way, it looks familiar, but only in that it's hard to forget what a world that has been destroyed looks like."

 _He sounds so jaded_ , she thought sadly to herself. Unable to stop herself, she placed a gentle hand on his arm in silent sympathy. _And yet, that sounds very much like something I thought earlier: that this place looks like the destruction of Tokyo under Galaxia. A world that has been destroyed, like he said._ It might have been a coincidence, but she wasn't discounting anything at this point.

Even if it was a coincidence, it was a very strange one: two people who both knew what destroyed worlds looked like. How many people out there could say something like that?

Trunks-kun seemed to draw himself back out of whatever it was he was thinking to glance back at her, over to the metal rod she had commandeered as a makeshift weapon, and back to her. "You were keeping watch over me?"

For some reason, that was actually a bit embarrassing, and she could feel her face flush slightly. "There is some kind of creature here. I've never seen anything like them before. I wasn't going to leave anyone to them."

"What kind of creatures?"

She shook her head. It was a valid question, but she didn't particularly want to recall the one she had seen. "Not much bigger than me. Lean and _very_ fast. The one I saw, all its teeth were razor sharp. It tried to grab me, and I—and I ran." She paused, uncertain about continuing. She had kept this a secret for so long that she wasn't sure she wanted to venture into too much of it even now. "Some of the things I should be able to do, they don't seem to work here for some reason. I don't know if it's just me, though."

That was good enough, she decided. It wasn't as if she were saying aloud that she was Sailor Moon, but it was bracing Trunks-kun for any inevitable shock if he wasn't able to do something he was used to.

Wordlessly, he lifted one hand, palm facing out at one of the buildings across from the one she had claimed as her own. He held out for a long minute before slowly, reluctantly, lowering. "It's not just you."

So obviously there was something that Trunks-kun should be able to do that he wasn't currently able to right now either, just like she couldn't transform into Sailor Moon. That didn't bode well.

What kind of a place was this, then, to contain creatures like the one she had seen _and_ to take away talents that would have allowed them to better protect themselves?

She didn't even bother trying to apologize for it. Trunks-kun didn't seem like the kind to accept sympathy, even if in this case it was more empathy than that. She didn't want apologies for her own powers not working; she just wanted them to work.

"We should get out of the open like this," Trunks-kun finally interrupted her thoughts to say. Just as well, since they were turning a bit banal and melancholic. "Do you know of a place we can go, or…?" He let himself trail off, giving her a chance to speak.

"I haven't been here and awake that long," she admitted again, "but I've been staying pretty close to that overhang over there." She nodded in the direction of her crevice and the half-collapsed shelter over it. "It's not much and I don't know how safe it is, but the creature I saw didn't follow me back there."

He nodded. "That's good enough for now." Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself to his feet then looked around again. "You didn't, by any chance, see a sword, did you, Usagi-san?"

She shook her head. Honestly, if she had seen a sword, she wouldn't have been wielding a metal pipe. "I haven't."

Without a word, he limped the few steps over from where he had been leaning to the open hole leading into the machine, what presumably would be the top and the pilot's area, and cautiously around the broken glass, he rummaged in there until he came out with exactly what he had been looking for: a long, European-style sword in its sheath. She didn't know a lot about that kind of weapon herself, but it looked as though Trunks-kun did. That was good at least. It was something they could use to defend themselves.

In an easy, practiced motion, Trunks-kun unclipped the clasp, positioned the sword quickly over his back, and clipped it shut again. So the sword was definitely his then. No one got that used to doing something like that so rapidly on the first try.

That solved that then. As long as she could trust Trunks-kun—and she had this feeling that she could—then they'd be safe here.


	4. Honest

Carefully picking their way over to the overhang was actually a bit more difficult than she was quite willing to admit just yet. Trunks-kun didn't say a word, so she couldn't tell if it hurt him to walk that far, even keeping most of the weight off his leg or not. Somehow she got the feeling that he had had a lot worse than this and still kept moving.

She was inclined to go with her gut on this one, no matter how it sounded when she actually thought it. She had no idea who Trunks-kun was, but everything in her was yelling that she could trust him. So apparently she was. It didn't make a lot of sense to her, but she was going to go with her instincts on this.

If there ended up being a later, once all of this weirdness was done and over with, she would worry about the consequences of blindly trusting someone then.

The second they were under the overhang, though, Trunks-kun sat down hard on a fairly level long block of some sort, and she let go of him to let him do it. It was the closest he had come to admitting that the leg actually hurt. She bit her lip nervously, actually taking the time to think very carefully about what she was going to say before she said it.

"Is there any first aid stuff in your… machine?" she finally asked, floundering on the last word, unsure what to actually say.

"Time machine," he corrected. Okay, _that_ she hadn't actually been expecting, but hey, she could deal with that. She'd traveled through time as well, hadn't she? The so-called coincidences around here just kept adding up, weren't they? "And no, not really. Some bandages, but nothing that's going to help with a broken leg." He offered a tight—and somehow improbably shy—smile. "Thank you, though, Usagi-san."

She pouted slightly, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. "Usagi-san sounds so formal. Usagi-chan or Usagi is okay, Trunks-kun."

He shook his head slightly, and if she wasn't mistaken, there was a light flush starting to build on his cheeks. "Sorry, Usagi-san, but my mother would kill me for that."

She relented, offering a grin instead. "Oh, all right." She even pretended to sound reluctant on giving in on the matter. "So what can I do to help then?"

"I can't think of anything."

She frowned in thought. "In the movies, they always tie up a splint or something." Not that she had the faintest idea of what exactly she was supposed to use for one or even how to do them. In truth, she had never really paid too much attention to those types of movies.

"I'll heal up pretty quick," he returned.

It was almost a relief to hear that. It meant she didn't to maybe accidentally hurt him trying to help. She didn't think she could do that. She didn't think that she had it in her. "Okay," she agreed and tried to keep from being weak with relief.

If the Ginzuishou was working, she could have asked it to heal him. True, it had always been easier in the Sailor Senshis' battles to let Saturn do that, but she had found that the Ginzuishou could do it as well in a pinch. It had always left her exhausted, however, and that might not be the best idea right now.

Still, though, she had never enjoyed seeing anyone in pain, especially not her friends. People had always said to her that she made friends too easily, but she didn't think that was a bad thing. Sure it meant that she had been burned a few times, but who hadn't? So too soon or not, she was going to count Trunks-kun as a friend.

A thought occurred to her, and so with a frown, she went ahead and just asked her question, apropos to nothing. "Do you mind me calling you 'Trunks-kun' then? Even if you still call me Usagi-san?"

And there was that small flush again. How cute! No, _no_ , she needed to reign herself in. This was not the time to be mooning over a hot guy.

"No, it's fine, Usagi-san."

"Good." Because it would be hard for her to stop. It wouldn't be impossible, of course, but she really couldn't see herself calling him 'Trunks-san' to save her life. It just didn't seem to fit him quite right somehow.

There was a comfortable silence for several long moments, long enough for her to settle into a spot of her own: on the ground across from him, her knee-length school skirt tucked around her legs. Sure, the ground was uncomfortable as hell and there was something poking her in the small of her back, but there was nothing to do for it really. Anywhere she tried would have been just as uncomfortable. If Trunks-kun's spot happened to be any more comfortable, it would have been a miracle.

The silence stretched until Trunks-kun shifted slightly, moving as if he was about to stand up. "The creature you saw, Usagi-san, which direction was it? And how far?"

Even now, she still had to fight down a shiver at the thought of that thing and what it might have wanted when it had grabbed at her. She pointed in the direction she had gone. "It was about six or so destroyed buildings in that direction. I'm sorry: it's not the best way to judge distance, but it was the best I could come up with under the circumstances."

Trunks-kun shook his head slightly. "No, it's fine. It makes sense."

"Why do you want to know?" Though she already had a sneaking suspicion she might have already known why. A theory that crazy, though, deserved some confirmation.

"We're going to need some kind of supplies: water, food, that sort of thing. I was going to see about finding some," he stated plainly, as if it was just a matter of fact. "I would rather avoid running into your creature right now, if at all possible."

Okay, now that was just crazy, as far as she was concerned, but he did have a point: it did have to be done. Supplies weren't just going to bring themselves here; they were eventually going to have to go get them. Why it hadn't be right now, though, she was uncertain. Oh, she got that it wouldn't be a good idea to wait, but she also knew that Trunks-kun wasn't in the best of shape; waiting a little while until he had had some time to heal should have been a better deal, shouldn't it? He _had_ said that he healed fast, right?

Still, if Trunks-kun was going out there, then… "I'll come with you, Trunks-kun." And she pushed herself to her feet.


	5. Encounter

To his credit, Trunks-kun hadn't put up much of a protest to the offer for her to come along with him to scout for supplies. She wasn't going to speculate on why, not yet, not without knowing Trunks-kun a little better than she did now. As of right now, it could be any number of things: he didn't want to leave her alone, he thought she was safer with him, it would be easiest to do this in pairs rather than all alone… She just wasn't sure.

It didn't really matter anyway; she was going with him either way. At least this way she could stick fairly close to him and not have to trail behind, following him.

The view traveling the opposite direction on what obviously used to be a street was no improvement of the side she had first traveled down. One after another after another, it was toppled buildings all over the place. The wind whistled through them as if through bone; she couldn't shake the image she had originally had, that these remains were very much like skeletons; and she shivered.

"Cold?"

She nearly jumped at the sudden, if quiet, sound of Trunks-kun's voice in the silence. It was actually on the tip of her tongue to berate him for scaring her, but she reined it in. It might have been years since she had been Sailor Moon, but she did remember how to be brave when the situation called for it. This situation called for it.

"A little," she offered just as softly in return. It wasn't the whole truth, but it was close enough. "Something about this place really freaks me out," she continued to admit.

He nodded. "There's something… off about this place, but I can't put my finger on it. Can you stay close to me?"

Stay close, now that she could do. She had offered to be his crutch again, serving as a method of keeping him balanced and on his feet, with as little pressure on his bad leg as possible. He had politely refused her. Apparently, if it came down to fighting of any kind, she would be putting herself in harms way, and he couldn't allow that. So instead she was walking closely to his side, ready to catch him and/or otherwise offer help should any be needed.

"Definitely," she answered, edging a little closer.

This whole place had her on edge—and not just the creature, though it certainly didn't help matters anyway. Something was just off about this place, as Trunks-kun had said, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She wasn't going to try to right now. All she knew for right now was that something made the hair on the back of her neck stand up straight. In fact, it was very much like…

"Hey! Hello, down below!"

…like they were being watched.

She might have nearly jumped out of her skin, but if the sudden voice had startled Trunks-kun, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he turned his gaze up towards a semi-intact building, his eyes tracking upwards until they lit on a figure about three windows up. She nodded slightly to acknowledge that she too had seen it.

"Come on inside, you two! Get off the street!"

She and Trunks-kun exchanged questioning glances, each of them asking the other what they thought of the idea, before they both shrugged and headed towards the door of the building.

Once they were inside, it was just a matter of trying to navigate through the broken remains of what had obviously once been a very nice hotel lobby. She seriously doubted that the elevator was working, so they were going to have to negotiate the stairs, she thought sourly.

Or at least they might have had, their mysterious figure not made an appearance, taking the stairs a few at the time, until he slid to a stop just short of tumbling down the last few of them.

"Hi.. um.. Hey." The man winced, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Sorry, it's been a while since we've had new people here. A few years, if I remember right."

Oh, now that didn't bode well at all. "Pardon me?" she prompted as politely as she could.

"Sorry, where are my manners? Please have a seat." There weren't too many options in the room, but there was the battered remains of a sofa only a few steps from the stairs. Slowly they had a seat on it, and she had to admit being surprised that it would take their combined weight. Mostly, she was just glad to see Trunks-kun off his leg and able to stretch it out; it had to be hurting a lot by now. "My name is Tenchi."

She eyed him curiously and a little warily. She did not have that same immediate sense of trustworthiness from this Tenchi person that she did from Trunks-kun; in fact, there was something about him that made her leery. Somehow, though, she did have an odd suspicion that it was only his time here that made her uncomfortable. He was older than both she and Trunks-kun, perhaps in his mid-thirties with short-cropped black hair and dark eyes.

"This is Usagi-san, and I'm Trunks," he answered. "What did you mean about new people, Tenchi-san?"

"For a while, we had new people showing up every few months or so, but that's been years ago. It has to have been at least two years since someone showed up." She found herself frowning in confusion, and in response, he continued. "No person who lives here is from this world. All of us were brought here, somehow and by some unknown force, from our own worlds—and we've all been left here."

"No one has ever gotten out?" Her voice was no louder than a whisper. If it had been any louder, it probably would have shook… but at as it was, she could pretend it was steady. She probably wasn't fooling either of them, though, but at least she could think that maybe she was fooling herself. "Ever?"

Tenchi-san shrugged. "People have disappeared and never been seen again. We don't know if they're finding a way out or if the Reapers or the Carrions are finding them."

"The what?" Trunks-kun asked.

"The Reapers and the Carrions. I don't know where the names come from. Someone who had been here a lot longer than me told me the names, and he said that someone else had told them to him, someone who had been here for a long time before that. He said the Reapers are the ones who bring us here and they're the ones who stop us from getting back out. I've known a few people who have fought them trying to get out, but no one has ever succeeded. Most people who tried have died.

"The Carrions seem to be the original inhabitants of this world. You may have seen them. They tend to attack people who are out alone. You can't see them coming or anything, but you turn around and there they are."

She felt more than saw Trunks-kun's eye on her. "Your 'creatures', perhaps, Usagi-san?" She nodded. It sounded right anyway.

"They're fast," Tenchi-san continued, "but they can't run for any distance. They don't seem to like heights either, so it would be best to find shelter that's well above ground level. They're… Well, I'd say they were cannibals if they were human. They look like us, but they aren't human. But they most assuredly do eat people."

That would mean that they would need to move their shelter. It also sounded like they seriously needed to stick together, neither one of them being out alone without the other. It worked by her, and she certainly hoped that Trunks-kun would agree to it as well. And she wasn't even going to think about that last revelation, not if she wanted to sleep ever again.

"Is there anything else we need to know, Tenchi-san?" she asked. Either Trunks-kun's politeness was rubbing off on her or she just wasn't quite sure what to think of or call this Tenchi-san person; he talked like he was closer to her in age, despite what she could see before her, and yet he was definitely her senior in this. This worked for now. Who knew, after all, if they were going to see him again anyway?

"You'll have noticed by now that you're missing something, an ability you had before you came here. We all are. The Reapers seem to take them. The theory is that they're taking them and using them, but they can't keep them unless they keep us too. I don't know if that's true or not, but they do sort of try to keep us alive—and I know I've lost all of my own powers when I was brought here. We all did."

Her ability to transform and all the powers that went with that, whatever it was Trunks-kun's was missing… And everyone else here was missing something too? How horrible.

"We've noticed." Trunks-kun's voice sounded stiff. He definitely looked uncomfortable.

"You will find that we heal fairly quickly—well, quicker than we may have before—here. Other than that, all I have for you is a warning, Usagi-san."

She blinked hard. "A warning? What do you mean, Tenchi-san?"

"Most of the people who have disappeared from here have been women, and the Carrions seem to have a special love for them. Please don't go out anywhere by yourself, Usagi-san. If you do, you'll need to be able to outrun them."

"I've managed it once before," she returned, and it was a struggle to keep her voice level.

"You'll need to do it every time, or else that's it. Do you have anything to wear besides your _seifuku_?"

And that settled it. Tenchi-san was definitely Japanese… or he had been before he wound up here. Still… She picked at her uniform skirt and shook her head. "No, it's all I had on when I was brought here."

"I'll see what we have upstairs," he offered. "They probably won't be a good fit, but people outgrow things and leave them here for new people. There's someone a few buildings over who is a decent seamstress, and she'll barter new clothes for extra food." It was on the tip of her tongue to say that they didn't have any to barter with, but she bit down on it. "Oh! Of course! You just got here."

She nodded. "That's right."

"Once you settle into a place, food and water start showing up. We've all checked it, and it's all right; there's nothing wrong with it in any way. The best guess I've heard on it is that the Reapers bring it. They do try to keep us alive after all. It's nothing fancy, but it serves its purpose. I'll see about those clothes now, Usagi-san."

Before she could say another word, he was on his feet again, springing up from where he had been sitting on one of the bottom steps, and rushing up the stairs. It sounded like he went up a few flights before there was the sound of a door opening and closing.

She glanced back over at Trunks-kun, though honestly, she had no idea what she was going to say, if she was going to say anything. Really, this was all too overwhelming for idle commentary, at least for her.

"The two of us are sticking together from here on out," Trunks-kun declared. No, it's actually more a pronouncement than anything else. Even if she felt inclined to argue, she didn't think she could have with that tone.

"All right," she agreed easily. It wasn't exactly a hard decision to make. "And neither of us is going anywhere alone from here on out either."

"Agreed." She had to say that she appreciated Trunks-kun not saying anything about her especially not going out alone. She wasn't used to being completely helpless and without her powers. She didn't much like the idea of it being pointed out though. Who wanted to be reminded of something like that? "I don't like the idea of staying here. Tenchi-san seems nice enough, but we don't know that anyone else here is trustable. Do you think the building we were at before was sturdy enough to try the upper levels?"

She thought about it carefully. It didn't _look_ sturdy, but it had held up to the near earthquake that had come from Trunks-kun's ship—time machine, and that wasn't going to quit being weird—crashing. "I think… maybe. It's worth a try."

They broke off when they heard the sound of a door opening again, followed by footsteps running down stairs. Meme seconds later, Tenchi-san came around into their view from the steps above. "Yeah, it's not going to be a good fit, Usagi-san, but they should work." She stood as he came to the bottom of the stairs and accepted the pile of clothes. On top of them was a bag of some sort, and she could smell food coming from it. Two water bottles sat on top of that. "It's not much, but it's what we can spare for now."

She sketched a careful bow, not really daring to do much more with all this in her arms. "Thank you for your generosity, Tenchi-san."

"I won't ask where the two of you are staying at. We don't talk about that sort of thing around here. I will say, if you go to the northern side of the city, watch out for the Thunder Emperor. He's the only one of us who has gotten back any of our original powers. Even the Carrions are afraid of him. The rest of us try to avoid him. He's a bit… indiscriminate about who he lashes out at."

"We'll keep that in mind," Trunks-kun offered, pushing himself to his feet as well. Immediately, he shifted so most of his weight was off his left leg. "Thank you for all your help, Tenchi-san." He didn't bow, but it didn't seem to offend Tenchi-san at all.

"Best of luck to the two of you."

Somehow she got the feeling that they were going to need it.


	6. Sensible

It had taken some time to find a way into the building they had been at. Once they were inside, then it was a matter of negotiating their ways through the debris covering every surface. If they were going to stay here, she felt like they might need to clear a path through the rubble.

Maybe not, though. Maybe it would be better to leave the path as difficult to deter anyone or anything else from stumbling into their sanctuary. She was going to defer to Trunks-kun on that one.

But the stairs going up were intact, though the same couldn't be said for the ones going down. They could get two additional stories up before rubble covered the stairs to the point there was no longer any passage to be had. The building had looked from the outside like there were a few more levels above the one they were on, but three stories up was going to have to be good enough.

There were several rooms on the third story, though she couldn't say they were all divided; holes and huge chunks were visible, leaving it a lot close to being all one big room. Whatever this building had been before now, it had at least included a bathroom on this floor. It even seemed to work, which was all the better.

In the end, Trunks-kun ended up settling to the section of the floor closest to the stairs. She didn't even pretend to be surprised. As for her, though, she took the one next to Trunks-kun's, just in case. The bathroom was more towards the center of the floor, and there were still two rooms available. What they could be used for, she didn't know.

Training maybe, she supposed. Trunks-kun looked like he was used to doing some kind of damage, even despite his frankly impressive manners and quiet demeanor. She, on the other hand, was most completely unused to doing much of anything without her powers. She was going to have to come up with something, though—or at least something besides running away. The thought of that being her entire strategy did not sit well with her at all.

Still, maybe she wasn't completely useless. She had had softball training with Seiya a few years ago, back in her first year of high school. She had been absolutely horrible at catching the ball and she had never quite managed to get the ball to go where she was aiming when it was her turn to bat, but she could swing. She could definitely swing, at least according to Seiya, who may or may not have just been being kind.

But she did have her metal rod. It was better than nothing at all. It was better than just running away every time. It might have been two years since she had last had to transform—or rather had to transform and managed it successfully—but she was still Sailor Moon.

Or she had been Sailor Moon. If she couldn't transform anymore, that probably meant she wasn't Sailor Moon any longer, much less Eternal Sailor Moon. She was going to do her best not to let that fact make her useless, though. She was _not_ going to be some helpless damsel always needing saving.

"It's not going to be terribly comfortable," Trunks-kun's voice carried over from the next 'room', "but I think it should be secure enough, Usagi-san."

"Thank you, Trunks-kun. Trunks-kun?" she questioned as she stepped into the tiny common area. She waited until he stepped out as well before she continued. "Do you think you can show me something I can use to defend myself, if we happen to get separated at some point?"

Trunks-kun nodded slowly, his face serious. "Of course. We'll see what we can come up with tomorrow." And there was that faint flush again. "I owe you anyway."

She tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Oh? For what?"

"You didn't have to stand guard while I was unconscious before, especially not when you'd lost your powers."

If she was going to trust them, then she was going to need to trust him all the way. "My magic. I lost my magic. I used to be able to transform and use my magic, but it's gone now. I can't even feel it inside me anymore."

It was a show of trust—and a pretty huge one at that. She still hadn't said she was Sailor Moon. Of course, if she was gathering correctly from what Tenchi-san had said, then all of them came from their own unique world. Trunks-kun wouldn't have any idea who Sailor Moon was, no more than she would have any idea who the heroes of his world or Tenchi-san's world were.

"I was able to gather _ki_ and use it in attacks." He snorted, and it almost sounded completely un-Trunks-kun-like. "I could even use it to fly. I haven't felt even a glimmer of it since I woke up. I feel like I've lost a lot of my strength too."

She had to fight the uncharacteristic urge to swear. "Still, you heard what Tenchi-san said. There's at least one person who has gotten some of their powers back. It's not impossible." And she still had the Ginzuishou. As long as she was still enough of Queen Serenity's daughter, then maybe, _maybe_ , she could still persuade it to work. It was always a game changer, a wild card in the deck, so to say.

"I'm not too sure I want to go inquiring of someone who calls himself the Thunder Emperor when all I have is my strength to defend myself. I've been up against some truly stacked odds, but that just sounds like sheer suicide."

She couldn't say that she disagreed. The name alone, even before Tenchi-san's rather terrifying description, made him sound like someone she never wanted to meet.

Somehow, she was fairly certain, though, that she was going to.


	7. Façade

The clothes she had been given by Tenchi-san were, as predicted, not the best of fits. The t-shirt was baggy, nearly swallowing her whole and hanging about halfway down her thighs; a sports team whose name she didn't recognize was emblazoned across the front.

Likewise, the blue jeans were miles too big. She had had to turn the hems up at the ankles, so that they actually stopped at her ankles and she wasn't walking on them. Tenchi-san had thoughtfully included a belt, so she used it to cinch the pants at her waist, after tucking in as much of the shirt as she possibly could. Her locket, that she shoved into one of the deep front pocket of the jeans. Even if she couldn't transform, she didn't want the Ginzuishou in it falling into the wrong hands.

She still felt like she was playing dress up in her mother's clothes, if her mother ever would dare be caught dead in something like this.

One thing Tenchi-san had not included was shoes. She still had her uniform shoes, and she could make them last as long as she had to.

 _I probably look like a fashion victim_ , she thought to herself with some amusement. _Weird… It doesn't bother me nearly as much as I thought it would. Spend enough time in a mini-skirt, maybe, and nothing else seems quite as bad?_

Still… She almost wanted to go back to Tenchi-san and see if maybe he had any shoes or if the woman who could sew had any to spare. Speaking of the woman who could sew…

Satisfied that she was as decent as she was going to get, she stepped out into the common area. True to Tenchi-san's predictions, there was food there now and bottles of water. It looked like it was all junk food and convenience store _bentos_. _Depending on how much Trunks-kun eats,_ she thought to herself with some small amusement, _what's here should be just enough for one day, assuming Trunks-kun doesn't eat that much more than me._

She hoped he didn't. She had no idea how they would go about lodging a complaint for more food to be delivered. She wasn't too thrilled as it was with food just appearing in the middle of their living space. It meant a lot of things that she really didn't want to think too much about right now, not in the least of which being that these Reaper creatures knew exactly where they lived and where they were at all times, presumably.

Tenchi-san's warnings echoed through her mind again, but this time at least she held back the shiver that threatened to come. It had been a lot harder last night, and sleep had been difficult to come by, to say the least. Finally she had settled for listening to the sound of Trunks-kun's breathing through the half wall that separated their two rooms, allowing that to let her drift off.

At least nothing here had to be heated up or kept cool. The _bentos_ all looked like they should be okay to keep until lunch, but she certainly wouldn't push them as far as dinner nor would she try to make them last until tomorrow either. The bottled water would get warm, but it wouldn't go bad.

All in all, if this kept up every day, then they should be in good shape for a while. At least their captors definitely wanted to keep them alive.

She faintly heard Trunks-kun moving around a few second before he commented, "Good morning, Usagi-san."

She offered him a bright smile. "Good morning, Trunks-kun." She gestured expansively to the food that had appeared over night. "It looks like we're getting delivery after all."

He was still walking with a bit of a limp today, she noted as he crossed the room to sit on the floor beside her, but it wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday. Maybe Tenchi-san had been correct after all about them healing more quickly as well. After a moment, she said as much.

Trunks-kun shrugged. "It's feeling a lot better, I guess. It's probably not one hundred percent yet, but it's definitely an improvement." He paused for a long moment, obviously giving some strong internal debate to what he was about to say before he decided to say it aloud. "I'm not sure it ended up set quite right. It doesn't feel like it's healing as cleanly as it should."

It was another show of trust, she realized. "On the TV, they always talk about breaking it again to set it correctly…" She trailed off, not sure if she wanted to think too much about what she was saying.

Trunks-kun shook his head. "It would be very hard to. I'm… Well, I guess saying I'm half-alien isn't too odd after all of this, right?"

She shook her head and offered a reassuring smile. "Not too strange at all. I was once told I'm the reincarnation of a race of beings that lived on the moon, so no, half-alien is definitely _not_ too weird."

Trunks-kun grinned in return. "My father was from an alien race of warriors called the Saiyajin. There's a lot to it, but the gist is that we're hard to hurt. It would take a lot to break the leg again, and I'm not sure we want to try it, not here at least. Maybe when all of this is over, but in the meantime, it's not too bad."

She nodded slowly. "All right, Trunks-kun." With a deliberate grin, she turned her attention back to the spread before them. "So we have a few options here. It looks like the options are mostly either cheap _bentos_ or vending machine stuff, but hey, it's better than nothing, right?"


	8. Secret

She couldn't think of the last time she had been as glad of something as she was to hear Trunks-kun call an end to their little practice session. She hadn't been wearing a watch when she was brought here and neither had Trunks-kun, so there was really no way to tell how long they had been going. It had felt like forever, but judging by the diminishing light, it had probably only been around an hour.

The minute Trunks-kun called time, she fell like a puppet with its strings cut. And she had thought fighting _youma_ was difficult. Clearly, her world and Trunks-kun's world were very different things when it came to fighting. She certainly hoped that she never had to fight anyone like whomever Trunks-kun was used to fighting.

And that had made a lot more sense originally than when she tried to flesh it out.

Once she finally had some breath to spare, she panted out, "So how bad am I?"

Trunks-kun sat down next to her. He, she was a little annoyed to note, didn't seem to be out of breath in the least. "How honest do you want me to be, Usagi-san?"

She winced sharply. That didn't sound good at all. "That bad, huh?"

"It's obvious this isn't your kind of fighting, Usagi-san. Your balance is all over the place—"

"You try fighting monsters in high heels," she shot back, biting back on a grin. It got a lot harder to do when it became immediately obvious that she had completely derailed Trunks-kun's train of thought.

"Wait, what? What was that, Usagi-san?"

And there was the grin, completely bursting past all her intentions to hold it back. She didn't even bother trying to fight back the giggles that came along with it as she sat back up from where she had been collapsed on the hard floor. "I said… you try fighting monsters in high heels." She spread her thumb and forefinger wide apart to give an approximate idea of just how high of heels she was talking about. "It's not easy. Thank goodness for magic. Otherwise I would have been tripping and falling on my face every five minutes."

"…If I asked 'how', would the answer be magic?"

She snickered. "Magic, a lot of running, and never ever fighting alone where possible. The fact that most of the monsters I ever faced were dumb as bricks probably didn't hurt matters in the least."

"So you had other fighters like you to help out, in your world, I mean?" Trunks-kun asked.

She nodded. "There were a few of us." And until she got back, if anything came up, the others were just going to have to handle it.

That was a sobering thought, and the smile slid right off her face. Until and unless she got back, the other Senshi were on their own. There wasn't even any way of telling if ChibiUsa would be back at any point to help them out. After all, if she never made it back, how would there even be a ChibiUsa to come back and help them?

Ugh, time travel hurt her head sometimes. It really, really did. Trunks-kun probably knew something about that himself. After all, hadn't he shown up here in the remains of a time machine?

"What about you, Trunks-kun? Do you have people to be getting back to as well?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly. "I've traveled back and forth between my own time and the past where my father is still alive several times, but there aren't any fighters left in my own time. It's just me and my mother. I just went back to the past one last time to let them know that I had defeated an enemy that had given us problems there—and yes, to fight in a tournament. When I was leaving, I guess that's when the Reapers grabbed my ship."

That was a lot more than she would have expected Trunks-kun to tell her. It was a confession, really, and she had to actually feel a little bad. She was still keeping secrets after all.

"Four years ago, I met a cat who could talk," she said, her eyes locked firmly on the floor. "That same night was the first time I transformed to stop a monster from attacking a friend of mine. The cat, Luna, told me my name was Sailor Moon. I met four other girls who could transform as well, and together we all fought the monsters. That was when I was told I was the reincarnation of that girl from the moon. Later that year, we all died fighting the evil that had brought the monsters to Earth. We all came back, lost our memories, regained them, and started back fighting again, against ever stronger creatures.

"The last one we fought called herself Galaxia. She used to be a soldier like we were, but she had gone evil somehow. I think she got possessed by some kind of evil spirit or something. Everyone died, except me—and I defeated her, so everyone came back again. That was two years ago. I had taken… a friend… back to the airport and was about to leave. That's the last thing I remember, so that must have been when the Reapers grabbed me."

A warm hand closed over one of hers. Startled, she looked up, meeting Trunks-kun's bright blue eyes in surprise. "Thank you, Usagi-san. You didn't have to tell me."

She immediately dropped her eyes, and unless she was very wrong, she was the one blushing now. "I don't know why I haven't. I guess I'm just used to the identity of Sailor Moon having to stay a secret. A lot of people could have gotten hurt if that had gotten out back home."

"Your secret is safe with me, Usagi-san, even if we manage to get out of here."


	9. Holiday

The next morning, the food was there again, showing up in the exact same location as the day before. She still wasn't too sure what she thought about it, other than that she did _not_ like the idea of their captors knowing exactly where they were and roughly how much they ate in a day. She especially did not like the idea of their captors being in here while they were sleeping.

But she wasn't going to knock the food being here. That was definitely a good thing.

As much as she wanted to dive right in, though, she set herself to dividing out the food into portions: two for breakfast, two for lunch, two for dinner. Keeping the portions as close to even as possible gave her something to think about besides these Reaper creatures being in their living space. If she put too much thought into that, then she was going to find a way to do something stupid.

She didn't want to be the one who always did something stupid, not here. It wasn't that it was a fresh start, not when there was so much baggage left over from Sailor Moon, but in the same time, it was starting over with new people. In Trunks-kun's case, she had new friends.

Honestly, though, she had never thought some of the things that had kept her up at night about some of her old friends.

Okay, granted, most of her old friends were girls, and girls had never held any real interest to her. She was content to leave that to Haruka-san and Michiru-san.

It was definitely guys who held her interest, and Trunks-kun had it right now. She was allowed to look—and she definitely wasn't blind! Besides, she and Mamo-chan had called a moratorium on their relationship until he was back in Japan full time again. Brief holidays didn't count, like the one from which she had been taking him to the airport.

One rather amusing Christmas holiday in her second year of high school, they had even spent a whole snowed in evening discussing some of the people they had each either given thought to dating or actually already dated. Hearing some of the other people Mamo-chan was interested in actually made her wonder about his interest in her: his taste seemed to run towards more sophisticated women, and that description did not fit her in the least. It fit Princess Serenity and Neo Queen Serenity, though, from what little she knew of the two of them, so yes, it was definitely cause for concern.

She liked Mamo-chan. She liked him a lot, truth be told. But she wasn't sure how much she wanted to have to change to be like his kind of woman, no more than she was sure he didn't want to change to be more like her type of man. He couldn't always be Tuxedo Kamen-sama all the time, after all. And she had seen King Endymion in Crystal Tokyo: it didn't look like he was going to be doing a lot of changing in her direction, while she was going to be doing a lot in the…

And she had lost her train of thought again.

The gist of it was, if she went back and if she stayed with Mamo-chan, she was going to have to change herself to be a more staid, sophisticated woman, someone she wasn't too sure she had inside her. However, Mamo-chan would not be making a change towards her kind of man: instead, he would likewise be becoming more… well… kingly… if the Crystal Tokyo timeline were to come about.

But all of that depended on her being able to go back. Right now, that didn't look possible at all. She didn't have her powers, and it didn't seem like the Ginzuishou worked at all.

The Ginzuishou… Now that was something she had left out of her stories to Trunks-kun yesterday. She would have to remember to say something about it to him at some point. She was through keeping secrets here.

She dug the brooch out of her pocket and opened it carefully. She was still so used to a flash of light every time it was open that it was almost disappointing to not see that immediately. No, there was no 'almost' to this. She was disappointed not to see the Ginzuishou flash and sparkle with all the magic of the Moon Kingdom.

If the Ginzuishou woke up, however, would it take her out of here? Would it take them _both_ out of here? She wasn't going to leave Trunks-kun here if she managed to get out; she was absolutely positive he would do the same for her.

When they got out of here, they were going to go together. She liked that idea. _I like it a lot actually_ , she thought to herself as she closed the brooch and put it back in her pants pocket.

A few moments later, she faintly heard the sound of boot steps behind her. She turned and offered a grin up to Trunks-kun. "Good morning. Breakfast?"


	10. Invisible

She wasn't one hundred percent certain that this idea was going to work. It hadn't been one of her better ones, as far as she was concerned, not in the least of which being because she couldn't really do a lot to help Trunks-kun with it.

However, she was more than willing to admit that she had definitely underestimated Trunks-kun's strength. Even if he had admitted to having lost some of it, what was still there was—frankly—very impressive.

Her idea had been to rearrange the ground floor of their home into something of a maze. Once they were done, they would be able to get through it easily enough, but it might slow down anyone that was after them. The idea was to have there be a path through the maze but hidden, invisible, in case someone besides the two of them were looking.

Most of the stuff that was down in the lobby area was pretty huge blocks of what looked like concrete. Obviously it had fallen from one of the floors above it but below the floor they were staying on. There was even some debris scattered around; they had managed to score an intact and working crank lantern, which could come in handy later. There was some smaller stuff and she was handling that decently well on her own, but that left the larger material for Trunks-kun. And honestly? He was doing decently well also.

She couldn't decide. Was she having better ideas now by being forced to think harder and better… or was she still just so used to all her ideas being shot down in favor of Ami-chan's and Rei-chan's and everyone else's admittedly better ones?

Either way, she could get spoiled quickly with having worthwhile ideas.

Every so often, they called a break, either to rest or check the look of the maze from various points in the room or, eventually, to have a late lunch. It had felt late anyway, but there was no telling the time without clocks.

A few times during the morning, however, they had also stopped because there were sounds just outside the mostly hidden doorway. In those times, they had both fallen silent, and Trunks-kun had positioned himself between the rest of the room and the doorway in nearly completely silence. She could almost start to hate having to be protected all the time, but they had already established that, without being able to transform, she wasn't much good in a fight.

A cynical part of her mind, a part that sounded very much like Rei-chan, spoke up to remind her that, even when she was transformed, she wasn't _that_ good in a fight.

Each time, the noises had moved on eventually, though a couple of them had been markedly persistent. After a few moments, they had been able to breathe a sigh of relief and get back to work. Thankfully, once the morning was over, the break in attempts had ceased; she didn't want to speculate too much on that.

Still, that was why they were working on this little invisible pathway. It would be better than nothing, when it came time to use it. That time would come. Of that, she was certain.


	11. Message

Trunks-kun had been watching as Tenchi-san walked back and forth, up and down what passed for a street around here, for the last ten minutes. What they were waiting on, she wasn't quite sure. She was almost certain that it was to make sure Tenchi-san wasn't in line of sight when they emerged from the building.

If that was the case, then she could completely understand. She wasn't too keen on people knowing where they were staying just yet either.

At last Tenchi-san moved well out of sight. With a silent nod, Trunks-kun slid through the half opening to their doorway, with her right behind him. So they had been waiting for Tenchi-san to move far enough away that he wouldn't see exactly where at they were staying.

 _Ha! Maybe I am getting smarter!_ It was a pleasing thought, even if it was likely to be an utter fairy tale.

They had been inside most of the last two days, between training and rearranging the lobby level of their building, but something in the air felt… different. She thought maybe the word she was searching for was 'charged', like it was filled with static electricity.

Also, Trunks-kun's time machine didn't look so good anymore. Apparently at some point, someone had started picking pieces off of it. It wasn't quite cannibalized, not yet, but it was definitely missing some pieces that had been there before. Apparently, some people who lived here were _amazingly_ quiet.

Trunks-kun looked even more unnerved by this than she felt. Of course, from what she could gather, he had taken more than one trip back and forth between the past and his own time in this thing. Maybe he had even been planning on trying to fix it and use it as a way out of here—to which all she had to say was, as long as he took her with him when he left, she had no issue with it. But with the time machine in this condition, she didn't think it was too likely to be used as a way out. She placed a gentle hand on his arm and offered a tight apologetic smile when he turned to meet her eyes.

"Ah, Trunks-san, Usagi-san!" Tenchi-san called out from behind them. At least it was very hard to sneak up on people here; there was enough rubble and gravel on the pathways to announce anyone's approach. "I wasn't sure where you two would be at."

"We've been around," Trunks-kun offered diplomatically. Neither of them was going to say a word about trying to make sure their sanctuary stayed hidden. Right now, Tenchi-san was their only link to the rest of the people who were trapped here like they were. "Did you need us for something?"

Tenchi-san shook his head, coming to a stop a few steps away from the two of them, before his attention was drawn away to the remains of the time machine. "Was this one of yours?"

On the spot like that, it was immediately obvious than neither of them had prepared to lie in a situation like this. Finally she answered, "Yeah." Let Tenchi-san think it was hers. He didn't need to know anything about either of them.

And that was an unusually vicious thought for her. Maybe she was trading in some of her innate niceness for these new brains. Or maybe she was just doing whatever it took for them to stay alive.

"People scavenge fast around here. If it looks useful, it'll be gone in a few hours or at the longest a few days." He frowned, a rueful expression on his face. "I guess we've all gotten too used to doing whatever it takes to stay alive around here."

"Did you need for anything, Tenchi-san?" she repeated Trunks-kun's question, carefully keeping her voice upbeat.

"Oh, yes, pardon my absentmindedness." She smiled, and at the same time, Trunks-kun shook his head. Clearly they both had some experience with absentminded people. "I wanted to tell you both that someone else came through earlier today."

She blinked, hard, in surprise. "What?"

"I thought you said people hardly ever come through anymore." Trunks-kun sounded suspicious—and she couldn't say that she blamed him. Only a few days ago, after all, Tenchi-san had certainly made it sound as though they were the latest—and probably last, at least for several years—arrivals here. And now there was someone else here already? It was a bit bizarre, to say the least.

Tenchi-san shrugged. "I know: it's weird. No one in two years and then three in under a week. It's right up there with the Thunder Emperor."

Trunks-kun's eyes narrowed. "What about the Thunder Emperor?"

Tenchi-san shrugged. "Apparently he only started getting his power back about a month ago, maybe even less than that."

"So he starts getting his powers back, and suddenly the Reapers need new people?" Trunks-kun mused aloud. Before she even had time to follow that thought through, he swore and paced a few steps away. "Of course! The Thunder Emperor started getting his powers back, so the Reapers needed new powers to control him."

Tenchi-san smacked himself in the forehead. "I can't believe I didn't notice that. It seems so obvious now. Still…" He eyed them both speculatively. "Still, the two of you must have been very powerful to contain even some of the Thunder Emperor's power."

Neither of them said a word to that. While she felt relieved to have finally let Trunks-kun in on her secret regarding Sailor Moon and while she felt privileged to know some about Trunks-kun's past, she wasn't sure she wanted to air all that quite yet, especially not in the open like this.

"So what about this new person?" she finally prompted as the silence stretched out long and awkward.

Tenchi-san shook his head. "I can't tell you much. Tall, thin guy. Spiky dark hair and funky sunglasses. Sylphiel-san caught a glimpse of him very briefly when he landed. She went down to help him, but by the time she got there, he was gone."

"That's… not good, right?" she whispered. "Is anyone going to try to find him?"

Tenchi-san shook his head slowly. "Not a chance. Sylphiel-san is the only person that the Thunder Emperor allows that close to his territory. Chances are good that he collected the newcomer for whatever reason."

"Why would he do something like that?"

"No one knows why the Thunder Emperor does anything, Usagi-san. No one wants to know. He's mad. That's good enough for us," Tenchi-san pronounced.

She felt herself bristling. Why she didn't know, but something about those offhand words rankled her as few things ever did. Before she could say or do anything, though, Trunks-kun cut back into the conversation. "Thank you for passing along the message, Tenchi-san. Be careful heading back to your place."

Thankfully Tenchi-san seemed to catch the very pointed hint that Trunks-kun was dropping, offered the pair of them a half bow, and took his leave. Trunks-kun waited until the older man was out of sight before turning to her, a curious expression on his face. "What was that, Usagi-san?"

"Something about that made me angry." Before Trunks-kun could ask the question that was completely obvious on his face, she continued, "I don't know why. Just a gut feeling I suppose."

"And here I thought I was going to be the first one to lose my temper with the man." She grinned back at his joke, bad temper forgotten for the moment. "Can you give me a hand? I want to see if there's anything _we_ can salvage from the time machine before there's nothing left."


	12. Mundane

It had only been four days since they had arrived here, but it felt as though they were starting to settle into a sort of pattern. One of them woke up first and separated out the food for the day; the first two days and today, she had woken up first, while yesterday it had been Trunks-kun who was awake first. Once they were both awake, then it was breakfast.

Trunks-kun usually trained a bit after that, making use of one of the two empty rooms on their floor, while she usually tried to find things to keep her busy. Most days it had been futile attempts to coax a response out of the Ginzuishou.

Their first day here, Trunks-kun had tried to show her how to fight, as well as gauge any abilities she had in that arena. To say she had no talent for it would have been a horrible understatement, in her estimation. The second day, they had created the maze that was the lobby. The third day, Tenchi-san had dropped his bomb on them.

 _Who knows what we can expect for today,_ she thought to herself with some odd amusement. _Maybe the Thunder Emperor himself will come knock on our door_.

Okay, granted, she wasn't exactly hoping for that, but she did accept it as a possibility. Anything seemed to be a possibility here.

Take for instance the fact that Trunks-kun's broken leg seemed to have mended itself completely in less than a day. Until they could reset it, it wasn't going to _not_ be painful for him to walk on, by her estimations, and he would have a bit of a limp, by his estimates, but the bone was already knitted back together. While he had freely admitted that Saiyajin healed a lot quicker than humans, he had also said that this was way too fast even for one of them.

Rather than set up in the common area or her own room as she had been doing, today she had sat down against the wall in the room Trunks-kun was training in. It was weird, but today didn't seem like a good day for them to be getting separated. It didn't make any sense and made even less when she tried to think too much about it, so instead she just went with the gut feeling and made herself comfortable as near to Trunks-kun as possible.

And she hadn't thought it was actually possible for a person to do one-handed handstand pushups. She would have thought that either a person's muscles would give or gravity would have prevented it from being possible. _Guess that shows what I know. Either way, one, wow, and two, be still, my heart._

It was actually a lot of fun to think things like that about Trunks-kun. In part, it might have been because she wasn't too sure she would ever act on any of the notions she was entertaining, not if it looked like it might make the friendship they were building uneasy or strained or anything. Right now, she was enjoying that friendship; she wouldn't want to ruin it.

Mostly, though, it was a lot of fun to think these kinds of things about Trunks-kun because he was really gorgeous. If Minako-chan had been here with her, by now the two of them would have probably been selling tickets to something like this. For now, though, she had the luxury of watching him exercise and thinking whatever she wanted.

In this weirdness of this strange world, the luxury of guy watching was so mundane that it was almost absurd. Not that she was planning on giving it up any time soon! Not a chance!

Trunks-kun lowered his other arm, so that he was doing a handstand, before glancing up at her. "You look like you're thinking about something really hard, Usagi-san," he commented as he slowly lifted the arm he had been supporting himself on before, in order to do the next set of pushups with the opposite arm.

She snickered briefly. If only Trunks-kun knew…

Well, there was nothing to say that she couldn't tell him. True, she didn't want to risk their friendship, but she did have her newfound honesty policy with him. She didn't want to go and wreck that by lying.

A little flirting never hurt anybody, and if Trunks-kun wasn't interested, he was always welcome to say so and she'd back right off.

Decision made, she winked. "Just admiring the view, Trunks-kun."

His other arm came immediately back down, but even that didn't seem to be enough to save his balance; he ended up tumbling to land hard on his side. It didn't look like it hurt him at all, which was a huge relief. But his entire face was bright red.


	13. Miscommunication

Trunks-kun, once he managed to get sitting upright once more, was as red as anything she had ever seen before. It was really cute. A voice in the back of her mind that sounded a lot like Minako-chan wondered if she could make him blush any brighter. She shouldn't be wanting to take that as a challenge. Yes, Trunks-kun did blush readily and prettily, but she wasn't going to push him too far on this, as she had already decided. A little harmless flirting was one thing, but going all out, just for the sake of seeing another flush might have been a bit too much.

She liked being friends with Trunks-kun, after all. They hadn't known each other very long, but that didn't really matter. It was nice, waking up every morning secure in the knowledge he was only a room away. She enjoyed having meals with him—and it was nice to eat with someone who ate even more than she did and with an equivalent amount of decorum. He was fun to talk to.

No, she definitely did not want to lose his friendship by overdoing the flirting where it wasn't welcome—if it wasn't welcome. It was a little hard to get a read on this with Trunks-kun. He might have been receptive, or he might not have been. She could only really say for certain that he was neither offended nor disgusted by the idea, so that was good at least.

"Usagi-san…" he complained quietly, just loudly enough for her to hear him from where he was sitting, most of the way across the room from her spot by the doorway.

"Sorry," she commented with a huge smile that was as completely unrepentant as she felt. "I couldn't resist."

"It's not nice to joke about stuff like that, Usagi-san." Already the flush was starting to die down—and wasn't that a shame?

Still, _that_ was what the problem was? She sat back on her haunches, hands on her hips in indignation. "Whoever said I was joking?"

There was a small frown of confusion slowly building on his face. "But… you apologized."

"For teasing, not for joking." She didn't lower her hands, not yet, but she did offer him a wink. "I was enjoying the view. I was apologizing for…" And now it was almost too hard to say out loud, so she just blurted the last bit out in one breath. "…In case you weren't interested or anything." That out of the way, it was almost easy to speak again… and it didn't look like Trunks-kun had anything to say just yet. "So, I'm sorry for teasing and for it sounding like a joke, because it totally wasn't, and I'm sorry for flirting if you're interested."

Trunks-kun said something too softly for her to hear, especially while she was still speaking herself, so she slammed the brakes on her apologizing ramble in order to hear him, should he decide to repeat himself. Thankfully, he did. " _You_ are, Usagi-san?"

"Oh, I'm interested. Of course I am. I wouldn't have said anything if I wasn't. That would just be mean." She paused for a long moment. "Are _you_ , Trunks-kun?"

She could have bit her tongue at his silence. She knew she should have kept her mouth shut, honesty policy be damned. She shouldn't have said anything, and now there was no way to take the words back.

Well, she could try…

"Forget I said anything, Trunks-kun." She pushed herself to her feet quickly. "I'll let you get back to—"

"I didn't say I wasn't interested, Usagi-san."

The words came out as a rush, even more so than hers had been only a few moments ago, so much so that they were also impossible to understand. Almost. Somehow she managed to, though, and a tentative smile began to spread across her face. She wasn't quite ready to give in to hope just yet, though. Not without some kind of confirmation. "If you're sure…?"

There was that playful look she was really starting to enjoy. "I wouldn't have said anything if I wasn't."

 _Okay, then, this could end up being a lot of fun,_ she thought happily, a huge smile spreading quickly across her face, too large to contain even if she had wanted to… and she didn't.

She was across the room in a second, dropping carefully to her knees in front of Trunks-kun. "I'll hold you to that," she commented quietly.

With way more care that was necessary, she cupped both hands around his face, lifting it to look at him more closely. That pink flush across his high cheekbones was back; she was never going to get tired of that.

She pressed a cautious and chaste kiss to his lips, lingering just a moment before pulling back slightly. Trunks-kun still sat frozen, as if completely indecisive about what to do. She had felt the same way the first time she and Mamo-chan had ever kissed. And if this was Trunks-kun's first kiss, then clearly she needed to have words with the girls on his world, because she couldn't see any reason why anyone would pass up on Trunks-kun.

She certainly wasn't.

"It's okay to touch if you want to, Trunks-kun," she whispered before leaning down to capture his lips again.


	14. Scars

Before her first kiss, she had read a thousand magazine articles, seen hundreds of kisses on television and in the movies, and listened to other girls at school talk about their first kiss. Even with all that preparation, she hadn't really been prepared for the reality of it… or at least nothing more than a girl's imagination.

Kissing Trunks-kun was like that first kiss all over again, only better. It was exploration. It was pure nervousness and sensation all at the same time. On top of all of that, it was fun. She might have suspected that with Trunks-kun, since she had such a good time doing everything else with him, but somehow it still managed to surprise.

She had never really given any thought to what Mamo-chan tasted like. Trunks-kun, though, he tasted like power and strength and a hint of sweat. She liked it. It suited him well.

Slowly, she moved one hand down from his face to his chest, taking her time to get acquainted with how he felt under her hands. There was so much warm skin to explore; she couldn't decide if she wanted to take her time to explore all of it or hurry up to feel more. He felt warm, warmer than she could remember any other guy feeling. Even when she had been kissing and touching Mamo-chan as Tuxedo Kamen-sama in the middle of battle, he had never been as warm to the touch as Trunks-kun was now. She was going to go with that was just how he was. He had said he was half-alien after all.

It seemed like that thought should deter her even a little bit; half-alien and all that was a bit more than she was strictly used to dealing with; but she couldn't find it in her to be bothered. She liked Trunks-kun; Trunks-kun was half-alien; she still liked Trunks-kun. One fact did not change the other fact in the least.

What did give her pause was the feel of scars under her hands. The uneven tissue of them was just different enough from the skin around them—and there were so many of them!—to slow her down slightly. If nothing else, it let her rein herself in before this ended up getting way out of control entirely too quickly. This was supposed to be… supposed to be… Well, whatever it was 'supposed to be', it absolutely was not supposed to start skipping steps or bases or whatever, not on the first kiss.

Not that slowing down was something that all of her agreed with. A pretty huge chunk of her wanted to find out exactly how Trunks-kun's skin would taste beneath her lips, if the texture of all that scar tissue was really slick as it had felt beneath her hands when she was tasting it, or even just how far he blushed. But this was definitely moving a bit fast.

"Usagi-san?" God, his voice was so close and so much deeper than it usually was. He sounded out of breath, and a very smug part of her thought to itself that she had done that to him. "Are you all right?"

That settled it. No matter what she had to do, no matter whom in this crazy world she had to fight, she was keeping this man. He was hers. She could almost start to hope that they never found a way back to their respective homes, because she didn't want to see him go.

It probably should strike her as amusing now that, while he hadn't found a place to put one of his hands, the other was a solid warm presence at her waist, holding her close to him. Yeah, she was definitely going to do everything in her power to stay as close to him as possible because she _liked_ this. She _liked_ how it had felt so far, and she was willing to bet that she was going to really, really _like_ where it eventually went from here.

"I'm good," she breathed out, and wow, her voice was seriously shaky. Maybe this was what the stories always talked about when they said 'kissed breathless'. If that was the case, sign her up for more. "It's just a little fast."

And wasn't that quite the understatement? She had only known him a few days. It seemed like longer. In fact, it seemed like a lifetime had passed already, in just these past four days. Part of that, she feared, was this weird world. A lot more of it, however, was that they had immediately acclimatized to one another, like they always been around each other. It didn't make a lot of sense, but it worked out well.

Trunks-kun nodded thankfully, easily agreeing with her assessment about how quickly they were or were not moving. This was another thing she liked about the two of them together: they already found it easy to defer to the other in speaking or when there was something one knew that the other might not.

She sat back slowly, not wanting to move too far away but needing some space to keep from jumping him again, not that either of them would mind. With carefully light fingertips, she traced one scar just hidden by his shirt. "What happened here?" she asked softly.

"Jinzouningen," he responded at the same volume, and she winced slightly; she had heard that story late the previous night. It had not been a pleasant one. "I'm sorry. They're probably ugly."

She shook her head slightly. "Not at all. You're a fighter. You earned them." She had been a fighter once, in her own way. The only reason she didn't have any scars to show for it was because of the Ginzuishou and nothing else.

 _You know what?_ she thought to herself in sudden determination. _Forget slow. Forget easing into a relationship._

She pushed herself back onto her knees, sliding closer until she was straddling his legs, draping her arms around his neck. "I changed my mind. A little fast is good by me."


	15. Mutual

Somehow she had almost expected everything after this to be all self-conscious and weird and all. That was how it always was in the movies, after all. (And in books and on television.)

Clearly that was silly, though. If anything, the only place awkwardness might come in was in her worrying about it being there. Once she pushed that thought aside, they were right back at the having fun stage of the game.

She had had a few boyfriends over the years, though none as serious as Mamo-chan. They had been passing fancies, nothing else. Mamo-chan had been the only one she had had a spare house key for, if that was any method of indication. Still, she couldn't recall having quite so much fun having sex with anyone before.

They had laughed at times because, yeah, first times could be awkward. (To hear Haruka-san talk, sex in general could be awkward: she had once overheard the older Senshi recounting a time when she and Michiru-san had been so into things that eventually Haruka-san had accidentally rolled off the bed and sprained her wrist.) She had taken the time to taste each and every one of his scars, learning very quickly that they were apparently very sensitive and maybe even erogenous. She could definitely appreciate that.

_Wow. A little fast was definitely the right way to go here. Too bad, Minako-chan: even if you were here, there's no way I would be sharing because, seriously, wow. There is no way I'm letting him go. I don't care what I have to do to keep him. Trunks-kun is mine._

"Usagi-san?" Trunks-kun's voice cut through her rather possessive thoughts. "We should probably be getting dressed. Just in case?"

She was afraid to think of what 'just in case' could involve. There were just too many possibilities for options in this crazy place. So it was a good suggestion. Actually, it was a really good suggestion. "Yeah, we probably should be." And she completely could not help it if she sounded less than enthused about the idea. It seemed like such a crime to cover up that body.

She gave a long moment's thought to saying that out loud. If she did, though, there was every chance that they might not end up getting dressed any time soon. She didn't mind that idea too much, but there was Trunks-kun's 'just in case' to consider.

She couldn't quite resisting giving a parting stroke over one on his back. There was a matching one on his chest, both of them almost perfectly cylindrical and each on opposite sides of his heart. She had asked about them as well during her exploration. The short answer had been Cell, and she had found herself biting back a growl. The more she had heard about the Jinzouningen and Cell, the more she wanted to hunt these creatures down herself.

Okay, she had always been overprotective of her friends, more willing to risk her own life than to see them get hurt, but this might have been a step or two beyond, even for her. She had never wished quiet so much ill, pain, and death on the deceased as she had the people who had hurt Trunks-kun over the years.

As she could have predicted, even this light touch over one of his scars had Trunks-kun whirling back to face her, a hand cupping the back of her head as he drew her back in to another breathtaking kiss. She might have instigated and perhaps even led their first few kisses, but Trunks-kun was a very quick study. Once he had it down… Wow.

She reveled in the intensity of this kiss. It held every bit of passion she was coming to expect from the young man next to her… No, from _her_ man.

After a minute that was entirely too short for her tastes, Trunks-kun pulled back, though only far enough to rest their foreheads together. "We really need to be getting dressed, Usagi-san." He didn't repeat the 'just in case' bit, but she could almost hear it dangling after his words.

"If you insist," she teased.

Her jeans were on the far side of the small room, back closer to the doorway. Thankfully, the rest of her clothes weren't too far away from the borrowed jeans, and she slipped them all on quickly. She didn't even bother to pretend she wasn't watching Trunks-kun get dressed as well. While she had very much enjoyed getting the clothes off of him, seeing them go back on was also entertaining.

By the time she had her shoes on, her last article of clothing, Trunks-kun was likewise dressed, minus his denim vest, and looking around, she certainly didn't see any sign of it in the room. She slipped over to the small window that faced the tiny courtyard this building afforded—and could have smacked herself. Apparently, in her rush to get the offending article off Trunks-kun's body, she managed to literally throw it out the window.

She glanced back over her shoulder at Trunks-kun, grinned, and offered a completely unapologetic "Whoops".

He laughed, genuinely amused. "Come on. You threw it out the window; let's go get it."

Side by side, they walked down the stairs and through the maze of a lobby. Once they got outside, it was a matter of circling around a couple other buildings to get the first available way into the back part of the buildings. Somehow that side had sustained more damage and destruction than the street-facing façades. It didn't make a lot of sense, but it didn't have to: that was just the way it was.

What they didn't do was hold hands. Once they hit the street, all playfulness has subsided, and they had both grown serious. The Carrions might not be interested in either of them, not yet anyway, but there was no sense chancing fate: it was better for the both of them to stay on their toes.

Elsewhere in the back lot area, she could hear gravel moving and tumbling. This was what it had been like that first time, when she met that Carrion who tried to grab her. Suddenly she was really glad that Trunks-kun was with her. More than that, she was glad that he was as aware of what could be going on around them as she was and was moving quickly, shrugging into the vest faster than her eyes could follow.

Stepping out of the courtyard area and into the back lot once more, she could see that there were no Carrions in sight. That didn't mean a lot, though, she supposed. They were so fast, after all.

Above their heads, she heard a loud pop of displaced air, followed by another, three, and four. Automatically, her head whipped up; seconds after that, her eyes went wide as saucers.

Somehow, when Tenchi-san had been talking about Reapers, she had never quite developed any sort of mental image in her mind of what they might look like. Floating creatures dressed in long dark robes and actually carrying scythes? Those had never figured into her thoughts in the least. It had seemed too cliché.

Clearly, the Reapers ran on the idea of the more cliché, the better, because all four of the ones she could see looked exactly the same: the same dark hooded robe, almost identical scythes, floating the same distance above the ground as they flew over the building she and Trunks-kun had been staying in.

The two of them exchanged a worried look before setting off as quickly as they could to get around the building and not make any unnecessary noise.

Personally, she was torn between wanting to see what it was these Reaper things were up to and getting the two of them to something like safety in their little suite of rooms in their building. But if they were being careful to make sure even Tenchi-san didn't see where they were staying, then there was no way they were going to walk into their building with the Reapers right here. They might be bringing them food in the early morning and taking the trash at the end of the day, but that didn't mean she wanted to extend a graven invitation for them to come up at any time.

Watching from the relative safety afforded by the rubble surrounding the side of the building, they could watch as two of the Reapers circled closer to the ground very near the time machine. Seconds later, those two Reapers each dropped something. From this distance, it was difficult to see what they had deposited, but a thick rope of something that looked very much like a braid had trailed behind one of the bundles, so she had a suspicion.

So maybe this was how new people came to be here? The Reapers brought them in and dropped them off, like… like… Like it was no bigger a deal than taking the kids to school.

Burdens deposited, all four of the Reapers flew straight up before vanishing again in another set of puffs of displaced air. This time, the sounds were a lot quieter, as if the Reapers' unconscious passengers had caused all the noise before, such that it had been.

Still, of all the places the Reapers could have dropped the new arrivals, it had been right here, right on their front doorstep, so to say. It seemed almost like a statement, maybe a statement of intent.

So if she and Trunks-kun and the lanky guy with the weird sunglasses had all been brought in to counter the Thunder Emperor, who were these guys and why had they been brought here?

"I suppose we're meant to bring them in," Trunks-kun commented under his breath.

"Maybe," she returned. It was pretty clearly obvious by both of their voices that neither of them was happy with this turn of events, though not for the reasons they could have been angry. They _could_ have been angry because they were only a few hours into a new relationship and now there would be two new people in the same place as them, even if it might only be for a bit.

Instead, she knew she was angry because this was very much like being given an order from their captors and being expected to follow it without question.

"Stay as close to the door as you can and still see them, okay, Usagi-san?"

Trunks-kun waited until she nodded and moved to the appropriate position. Where she stood then, she would only have a few meters to run before she was inside the building. It was a small relief, yes, but it was still a good thing. Once she was standing in the best spot she could find, she gave him another nod, and he immediately crossed the path area to the two unconscious bodies lying in a heap in the middle of what had probably once been a street.

Without a bit of hesitation, he hefted the first one into his arms and quickly moved him over into the lobby area before going back and bringing the second back with just as much celerity.

She gave each of them a glance over as she followed Trunks-kun with the second one inside. The first one didn't seem too tall, somewhere between her height and Trunks-kun. His short dark hair stuck out at wild angles, and even unconscious, there were severe lines on his face. The other was in possession of all that hair she had seen earlier, a long braid that extended the entire length of his back; his face seemed more relaxed than his companion's did. They wore matching uniforms, and she had a sneaking suspicion she knew what that meant.

Whoever they were, they had both come here from the same world.


	16. Unreciprocated

Getting their unexpected guests upstairs had been… interesting. She had stayed with the longer haired one while Trunks-kun had taken the other upstairs then trailed behind when Trunks-kun took the other up. She held no illusions that she would be able to help with something like this. She would find some other way to help later.

"The other bedroom works for now, right?" Trunks-kun asked as they reached the top of the stairs.

She could see into the spare room from where she stood. The short-haired guy was already in there. It was one of the closer rooms, with only Trunks-kun's room being any closer, while her own bedroom and the training room, as well as the bathroom, were on the back part of the floor. She certainly wasn't giving these guys her room, and she wasn't too keen on handing over Trunks-kun's bedroom or training room. So, yeah, that did leave one place.

"Yeah, that works," she confirmed.

With a quiet nod, Trunks-kun started taking his burden in that room. He was limping a lot heavier than he had been since that first day he had arrived. Well, carrying two people up a few flights of stairs had to take it out of a person.

"Why don't you get off that leg for a bit?" she asked softly.

Faintly, she could see him winced slightly; he wasn't exactly turned to face her. "I've been hurt worse than this before and kept going, Usagi-san," he turned just as quietly.

"Yeah, well, I'm a wimp." That at least got a snicker and half a grin, and she smiled broadly in response. "Besides it'll give us a chance to figure out what we're going to do here." She nodded at each of their guests to show what exactly she meant.

"All right." He set the second man down next to the first and then had a seat himself next to the pair of them, stretching his left leg out to the side. She tucked herself down next to him; she was still not used to wearing pants, after so long wearing skirts—to say nothing of fighting in a miniskirt; and made herself comfortable against his side. "So what are you thinking, Usagi-san?"

She couldn't hold back another large grin, and she didn't even try to contain it. After all they had done together earlier, and he was still using '-san' for her. Then again, she was still thinking of him and calling him 'Trunks-kun'. Oh well, there was no point in thinking too much on it too much.

"They're wearing the same uniform," she commented slowly. "I think they're from the same world. That would be a first here, right?"

He nodded. "Tenchi-san certainly made it sound like that."

"I wonder…" On a whim, she leaned forward, patting down their pants pockets and jackets.

"Usagi-san?" Trunks-kun sounded a bit shocked, but she had found what she was looking for.

"Ha!" she cried triumphantly. They weren't carrying wallets, _per se_ , but they did both have ID cards in a wallet with a badge of some sort on the other side of the wallet from them. Unfortunately, they were written completely in English, and she just wasn't too terribly great at that. Instead, she offered them to Trunks-kun. "Can you read them?"

Trunks-kun accepted them and examined each in depth. "It says they belong to a group called the Preventers. He," he nodded at the shorter haired one, "is Heero Yuy. There's some rank and information here, but I guess we don't need that right now. And _he_ is Duo Maxwell. Looks like they're both nineteen." Between her age and Trunks-kun's then. Good to know.

Again, she found herself thinking about commenting on the odd names, and again, she restrained the urge. That was opening up a line of commentary that she didn't think she wanted to go too far down. It wasn't as though she had that much room to talk anyway.

If they stayed unconscious as long as Trunks-kun had and as long as she presumably had, then it could be about half an hour or so before they woke up. She hadn't thought to ask Tenchi-san if that was the normal. It seemed so stupid for her not to have asked that before, but she regrettably hadn't thought that she was going to need to know it again.

"So what are you thinking, Usagi-san?" Trunks-kun asked again.

She no more had an answer now than she had then, but she was more than capable of thinking her thoughts aloud until she came to a solution. "All I've come up with is to let them stay here until they wake up and find their own place. I don't know if there are any places near here that are salvageable, but whatever works, right?"

He nodded. "There is the whole 'strength in numbers' thing, though, Usagi-san."

She too nodded. "True. I'm open there. What do you think?"

"If they want to stay here, they can. If they're the kind of people we want to have around, I mean." He shrugged. "It might not be too bad an idea to have some extra eyes and ears around here, with the Carrions sniffing around the front doorway yesterday."

While they were working on the lobby area, she thought in remembrance. That had been a bit terrifying. She could remember how they had both held their breaths in fear of being found by those creatures. It wasn't a good thought, to say the least.

She nodded. "Sounds like a plan." She turned her attention to the pair before them and commented, "Welcome to the house. Hope you enjoy your stay." When there was, of course, no answer, she made a quiet _tsk_ -ing noise. "Fine. Wonderful conversationalists, you two."

At least her antics had brought a smile to Trunks-kun's face. That was good enough for her for now.


	17. Sarcasm

It was definitely unnerving when their two new arrivals had not yet woken up by the time the sun was going down. She had brought meals for her and Trunks into this room twice, and even gone to her room for her handkerchief after discovering a cut on the hand of the one with shorter hair—Heero, she corrected herself—and tying it around to it.

For now, that was the closest to bandages that they had. Well, there were still her old clothes, her school uniform, but somehow she got the feeling that they were saving that for if they needed them for something serious. Against the Thunder Emperor or the Carrions or even the Reapers, maybe, but not for small scrapes like this.

She couldn't really help it; she yawned big, completely unable to hide it, much less hold it back.

"It's been a long day, hasn't it?" Trunks-kun asked softly next to her. She nodded, not trusting her voice too much at the moment. "Why don't you get some sleep? I'll keep an eye on them."

"Are you sure? I can take part of the night," she objected, but it was half-hearted at best. She was too tired for a serious argument right now.

But Trunks-kun shook his head. "I'll be good. Get some rest."

It was just as well that it was all right by Trunks-kun. She was out in a matter of moments, her head resting on Trunks-kun's shoulder after he slid his sword off, setting it just beside him, still in range for a quick reach if it became necessary. _This can't be too comfortable for him_ was her last thought before she was out.

She had weird dreams. There were these huge metal monsters, both of them several stories tall. One was mostly white, while the other was predominantly black, but both of them had huge wing-like appendages sticking out of their backs. People kept calling them some weird word, something like "Gundam", maybe.

She kept seeing those two machines, one after the other then back to the first, over and over in her dreams. She didn't know how, but she kept feeling like these two things related back to their guests.

The dreams themselves weren't what was so weird, though she had to say that she had no idea where she could come up with those metal monsters; she had never exactly been a fan of giant mecha anime, since that was more her brother Shingo's realm of interest. No, what really struck her as odd was that, even in the dream and even while _knowing_ that these Gundams related to Duo and Heero, she wasn't afraid.

She didn't quite that same sense of immediate trust with the two of them that she had with Trunks-kun. It wasn't the same thing. It was a very close cousin to it, though. She did trust them, at least the dream versions of them, but it was more tempered, less immediate.

But if they had to do with those metal monsters, then what could it have been that they had lost by being brought here? She got the distinct impression that they weren't exactly summoning the mecha; if anything, it was more like they were inside them, directing them. _Piloting them_ , her mind supplied, and she agreed.

If Trunks-kun had lost his ability to draw out his own _ki_ and she had lost the ability to transform, what had Duo and Heero lost?

The question echoed throughout her dreams. There was no answer given to it throughout any of them, and that bothered it more than it should. Because if they hadn't had some ability for the Reapers to steal, then why were they here? There had to be a reason, and the possibilities leaned toward terrifying.

Two things yanked her abruptly from her sleep. One was the body she was leaning against quickly moving; Trunks-kun was shooting to his feet, even as he took a split second to steady her before she fell over. The other was someone swearing, saying something along the lines of "What the hell is going on here?!"

She quickly opened her eyes and noted a few things in rapid succession. From the hole in the far wall, it was obviously still the middle of the night. The crank lantern on the floor cast wild shadows around the room, but at least it was enough to see by, if only barely. Trunks-kun was standing just in front of her, placing himself between her at the pair in front of her, sword drawn and at ready. Duo and Heero were both on their feet, and if she wasn't mistaken, that was a gun in Heero's hand. How had she missed that when she was patting them down or even when Trunks-kun was moving them?

From the looks of things, it had been Duo who had spoken. Heero… didn't seem like the talkative type.

She pushed herself slowly to her feet. There was no point in exacerbating the situation at this point. A tiny absurd part of her actually wanted to hold her hands up in the classic position of surrender. For now, though, she was resisting it. "It's all right," she commented softly. "We're friends. This is Trunks. I'm Usagi."

All her words seemed to have accomplished was shifting Heero's attention to her. The gun hesitated briefly slightly between Trunks-kun and her before setting more on her. Trunks-kun, in turn, responded by shifting the corresponding inch or so to the side. _Looks like Heero doesn't believe me_ , she thought inanely. _The last time I had a gun aimed at me, there was a pink-haired six-year-old aiming it at me. I think Heero's gun is a lot more real than ChibiUsa's was._

It was Duo that seemed to be evaluating what she was saying and giving it the appropriate level of consideration. "I think she's telling the truth, Heero." When Heero's attention didn't waver in the slightest, the taller man rolled his eyes. "Holster it, Yuy. Let's not wear out our welcome before we get here."

She didn't have to see Trunks-kun's face to know he was smirking in amusement right now, even as he was lowering his sword and putting it back into its scabbard. Over his shoulder, she could see that Heero was indeed lowering the handgun, tucking it away behind his back. Well, that might have explained why she hadn't found it while she was looking for their IDs but not why she had _not_ seen them when Trunks-kun was bringing them up here.

Duo stepped forward, holding a friendly hand out. "I'm Duo Maxwell. This pain in my ass is Heero Yuy."

She weighed the pros and cons quickly in her mind, finally stepping out from Trunks-kun. "Pleased to meet you." She shook his hand briefly before stepping back towards her… partner. "I hope you don't mind, but we checked your IDs earlier." She nodded to where they had left on the ID wallets on the floor. "You were unconscious when you arrived." They all had been, but she wasn't getting into that just yet.

"Where are we exactly?" Duo glanced around as he asked, as if he would be able to tell from the almost four walls that surrounded them.

"It's kind of a long story," she hedged. A long story and the middle of the night, but again, she wasn't mentioning that.

"I think we've got time," Duo commented, "and it'd be nice to have something to say besides 'we're not in Kansas anymore'."


	18. Insanity

There were a few seconds of silence then… "This has to be the most insane thing I have ever heard."

She shrugged slightly. "I'm just telling you what we were told."

And she wasn't adding honorifics to either of their names—or even using their names if she could help it—until she got over the internal debate she was having. Her brain kept insisting that, if there was going to be all this attitude, then it would just have to be '-san'. Her heart, or whatever it was that was helping her decide who to trust and who not to, seemed to be dead set on '-kun' though, and that just didn't make any sense. It made even less sense than dreaming of giant mecha and somehow knowing that they were somehow connected to the pair in front of her.

"Do you even know if these things are real? I mean, maybe—"

"I have seen one of the Carrions," she cut in before Duo could continue ranting. "We've heard them several times since we've been here too."

"As for the Reapers," Trunks-kun continued, "we saw four of them when they dropped you to on our doorstep."

"What exactly do they look like?" To her surprise, that came from Heero. It was the first time she had heard him speak since they woke up. Odd: she hadn't been expected his voice to be quite so… She wasn't sure of the word for it, but it was unique.

"They fly, for starters," she explained. "Other than that, they were wearing long black robes with hoods and carrying what looked like scythes. Kind of like those pictures of the Grim Reaper?"

It was a second attempt to explain what it was she thought the Reapers looked like. It turned out that the Grim Reaper wasn't anything Trunks-kun had ever heard of before. Apparently things like that didn't make across the worlds. Baseball was something the two of their worlds shared, but not the image of the Grim Reaper. If she ever got back to her own world, she was going to have to ask Setsuna-san about this; Sailor Pluto was the only person she could think of who might have any kind of idea about stuff like this.

"Damn." Unsurprisingly that came from Duo. Honestly, she was starting to think that he had some sort of swearing quota he was running behind on.

"What?" she asked. If it had been Trunks-kun, she might have been a bit more delicate in her asking, but it was the middle of the night and she was annoyed. Her delicateness was just about worn out at this point.

"They sound like the creatures that attacked us."

Part of her was having a very sarcastic thought, that of course the Reapers were the ones that attacked them; the Reapers were the ones who brought them all here. But there was something else to that sentence, something a whole lot more immediately important. "You remember being attacked?"

"Yeah… You don't?"

She shook her head, glancing over at Trunks-kun, who in turn did the same. "I remember everything up to that point, but what actually happened when the Reapers brought me here? It's still all a blank."

"Same here," Trunks-kun commented. "Everything up to that last minute or so is crystal clear, but the actual attack is gone. I can't remember it, no matter what I try."

It sounded like Trunks-kun had been trying. Somehow that didn't surprise her, even if she hadn't known about it until now. She hadn't completely given up on it herself, but it had been since early yesterday—or rather, the day before yesterday by now—since she had last tried to stir any trace of the memory.

Trunks-kun had said something, though, something that bore some additional investigation. What if the Ginzuishou could do something with this? She might not have had her magic in order to fully use it, but maybe… She was still the daughter of the Queen of the White Moon Kingdom. Maybe she could convince it to do _something_.

At that, Duo finally stopped pacing back and forth the length of the small room and sat down across from the two of them. Heero, on the other hand, continued to lean against the wall behind Duo.

"The Preventers had been getting reports of strange activity on an abandoned colony. Heero and I went to check it out. When we got there, there were these things… all over the place. They looked like what you described, Usagi: like a whole bunch of damn Grim Reapers."

An inane and possibly sleepy part of her mind archived the fact that there was a legend of a Grim Reaper on Duo and Heero's world. More than that, though, there was something a whole lot more concerning. "Wait, 'a whole bunch'?" she questioned. "We've only seen the four. How many are you talking?"

"Dozens."

"No more than twenty or thirty," Heero put in, correcting Duo.

 _Okay, so that's probably what it's like to have the breath knocked out of you,_ she thought in shock. _There are so many of them. What could they possibly be doing in this other world?_

Fortunately, though, Duo continued as if she hadn't had just made some kind of horribly strangled sound of surprise. "It looked like they were building something, some kind of relay tower. Aside from that, it looked like some of them were strengthening the infrastructure throughout the colony."

"They're leaving this world." She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden sound of Trunks-kun's voice right next to her. "Maybe this world is nearly used up. They need a new world to take this—"

"House of horrors," she provided for lack of a better phrase.

"—this house of horrors to, and I suppose they've selected yours."

"Like hell." Unsurprisingly this came from Duo. Heero remained silent, but his face looked even stonier than before. He definitely agreed with his… partner?... on this. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but what can we do to help?"

She exchanged a glance with Trunks-kun, and both of them shrugged helplessly at one another. Neither of them had yet taken this as far as fighting captors they had only seen for the first time today.

"I'll need to talk to Tenchi-san," Trunks-kun finally said. "See if he knows anything about how to get out of here."

She kind of doubted it, but Tenchi-san had been a pretty good fount of information on things in this weird world so far. Maybe someone had tried it before. Even if they had failed, it could still be a good source of knowledge.

And then a thought occurred to her, probably her most insane one to date. "Do you think the Thunder Emperor could help?"

"Are we crazy enough to try it?" Trunks-kun countered. "Tenchi-san said that he was pretty indiscriminate about who he attacks."

"But he leaves that Sylphiel person alone. It might be worth a shot. And if he's got his powers back like Tenchi-san said…"

"Am I supposed to be following this conversation?" Duo sounded like he was musing aloud, but either way it was somewhat amusing and she cracked a tired smile.

Trunks-kun pushed himself stiffly to his feet and held a hand down to her to pull her up, which she gratefully accepted. "That might be part of the conversation best saved for the morning." It was a fairly pointed comment towards how late it was, but at this late point in the evening, she was more than willing to see those tossed around. She could certainly do what a few more hours sleep. "You're welcome to the bedroom and the room behind it for the rest of the night," Trunks-kun offered. She pointedly did not mention that he was offering up the training room; it didn't need to be mentioned right now. "We'll figure out if other arrangements are needed in the morning."

"Good night," she added.


	19. Embrace

It felt a little odd, not waking up in her own room this morning. She hadn't given it a lot of thought late last night, when Trunks-kun had quietly asked her to stay the rest of the night in his room with him. She hadn't even asked if it was because of their… guests, but she was pretty sure that was the case. Neither of them had exactly endeared himself to Trunks-kun during last night's very late night conversation.

She almost wanted to say that she felt like the two of them could be trusted, but on what basis was she making that decision? How they had acted and what they had said last night… or that weird dream she had had right before they woke up? It was worrying that she couldn't say for certain. It certainly bore some thought.

Well, it certainly wasn't like she was going anywhere, she thought with some small amusement. Trunks-kun was not exactly awake yet, but she was still wrapped tightly in his arms. Until Trunks-kun woke up, she wasn't going anywhere. It shouldn't be too much longer, she didn't think. He usually woke up just before or just after her. Last night had been unusual, though, so who knew what today would be like?

Out of the corner of her eye, she could faintly see where the food and water for the day had shown up. She was utterly unsurprised to find that the amount of it all had doubled. Whether that was for today only or not, she didn't know, but apparently the Reaper who brought the food knew that how many people were in this place today.

That dream, though… It continued to stay in the forefront of her thoughts. It had seemed so real at the time, and it still left her with the feeling that they could trust their new companions, at least more than they could trust some of the other people they had met here so far. She would trust Duo or Heero a whole lot further than she would Tenchi-san, at least right now. It wasn't an ideal solution, but she didn't have a lot of other options.

Well, there was one other: she could just ask Duo or Heero about that word she kept picking up in the dream. She could ask them what 'Gundams' meant, if the word had any meaning to them. She almost wanted to run a control experiment first, though, and ask Trunks-kun if he had knew anything about a word she had heard in a dream she had had that first night: dragonballs.

It certainly had never come up in conversation, and she couldn't even fathom what such a thing could be. She had never asked because… Well, mostly she hadn't asked because it all seemed so insane, as Duo had said last night, and she hadn't wanted to risk seeming mad just then. Now, though? Now she was just curious.

And oww, her brooch was digging into her hip terribly today. She shifted slightly to try to ease how uncomfortable it was, and Trunks-kun stirred next to her. His embrace tightened for just a second before easing again as he started to wake up.

"Good morning," she commented softly when bright blue eyes started to open.

"Good morning," Trunks-kun returned with a yawn. "Tell me it's actually morning this time."

There were faint hints of color starting to bleed through the sky outside the window, but it was still fairly dark outside. "Almost? It's early."

Once upon a time, no more than a week ago, she would have been shocked to find herself awake at this house, much less fairly coherent. She wasn't exactly sure it was an improvement. Uninterrupted time with Trunks-kun was definitely a plus in the column of it being a good thing, though.

Trunks-kun groaned, and she didn't even bother holding back the grin she felt building. It sounded like Trunks-kun felt exactly the same about mornings that she did: avoid at all costs if possible.

She was starting to dislike them a whole lot less now, though. For the moment at least, they afforded her and Trunks-kun some time alone. She could get behind that.


	20. Solitude

Maybe she should not have been surprised when it was Heero-kun who wandered out of the spare bedroom first not much later in the morning. She and Trunks-kun had already eaten their shares of the breakfast foods, and Trunks-kun was in the other room now training, once he had quickly determined that neither of their guests had moved into it last night.

Personally, she wasn't too surprised by that. There was Trunks-kun's strength in numbers theory, but she honestly just got a feeling the two of them were fairly close, just from body language and all that she had picked up last night. How close she couldn't exactly tell and she didn't want to fathom a guess and be wrong about something like this.

"Good morning," she greeted him quietly. Heero-kun started like someone was shooting at him, but he quickly recovered. "There's food down here if you're hungry yet."

Wait a minute… 'Heero-kun'? Well, apparently at some point between late last night and now, she had made a decision about trusting them, and she had come down in their favor. She wasn't going to argue the decision, not right now. She wasn't going to give too much thought about whether or not that weird dream of hers had anything to do with her decision to trust the pair of them.

She remained quiet as Heero-kun crossed the common area, finally taking a seat across from her. He was silent in turn as she pushed one of the two remaining portions over towards him. So he actually surprised her by asking, "There isn't any tea by any chance?"

It took her a second or two to recover her ability to speak. "I wish there was. I never thought I would miss green tea in the morning." Catching herself rambling, she winced slightly and continued, "There's only water. Sorry."

All Heero-kun did was nod slightly and go back to his breakfast.

Maybe she had made a mistake about how close he and Duo-kun were after all. Or maybe he just didn't trust her or Trunks-kun; it wasn't as if he had said more than a few words in their presence at all since they had been awake. Or maybe she should stick to her initial assessment: that Heero-kun was the strong but silent type.

Honestly, she didn't know what to make of him. She wasn't able to get much of a reading off of him. It was like trying to read emotions off a brick wall, as clichéd as that sounded even to her own mind.

If she had to try to guess at anything she was picking up off of him, she would guess that it was loneliness. No, maybe 'isolation' was a better word, as if Heero-kun had removed or even excised himself from large portions of the world. Well, that was sad. It seemed like a horrible way to go through life.

Still, she supposed that was what she got for only reading Duo-kun's body language last night. To be fair, Duo-kun had been the only one of the two with readable body language, so maybe she could be forgiven for reading things a bit wrong.

She did stand by parts of her original assessment, however. They were close. She was going to change her idea from lovers to friends, though, at least as far as Duo-kun was concerned. From how close Duo-kun stood to Heero-kun and how he always seemed to be touching him when they were both awake and in the same room, however, she was willing to bet that Duo-kun was interested in more and either hadn't said anything to Heero-kun or had said something and was informed that he was firmly in the 'friends zone'; she was better the former was more likely than the latter.

The long silence had the potential to get awkward quickly, but she was oddly not feeling it yet. Despite what some of her fellow Senshi might have thought, she was not actually allergic to silence. She could sit in silence if it was necessary or if it was what the person she was with preferred. She had already come to understand that sometimes Trunks-kun needed some quiet time, so why should Heero-kun be any different? Just sitting around and being quiet wasn't exactly she was naturally good at or really enjoyed, but she could indeed do it if the situation called for it.

The quiet was interrupted by an almost imperceptible noise from the guest room—she wasn't going to let herself start thinking of it as Duo-kun and Heero-kun's room until they actually said they were planning on staying here—that had Heero-kun's head whipping around to look sharply behind him. A few seconds later, Duo-kun emerged, one hand rubbing through the sleep-mussed remains of his braid.

"Morning," he greeted sleepily, flopping down hard—hard enough to make her wince sympathetically—next to Heero. Almost immediately, he turned to bury a yawn on Heero's shoulder.

"Good morning," she returned with a smile once he turned back to face her again. "Breakfast?"

"God, no."

She blinked in surprise. Well, that had certainly been emphatic.

To her surprise, once again Heero-kun spoke up again. "Duo isn't much of a breakfast person." He paused a second before continuing. "And if there isn't any tea, there isn't any coffee either."

Duo-kun's eyes went wide. He actually looked mortally offended. "No coffee? What kind of a hellish world is this?"

"I said something similar my first day here," Trunks-kun's voice slid easily into the conversation, as he slipped into the main room from the training area, taking a seat somewhere between her and the other two in the room. "I don't think I was quite so… vocal about it, though."

At that, she had to grin. "I don't know, Trunks-kun. I thought you were pretty vocal about it."

From the faint flush that immediately started to spread across his cheeks, apparently Trunks-kun took that a bit differently than she had meant it. Thinking back over it, she could see how easily her words could be taken in a… different way. She had to chuckle to herself.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Duo-kun raise one eyebrow with an expression that was somewhere between interest and amusement and disbelief. Heero… Heero looked like he was withdrawing from the conversation already, carefully packing away his breakfast and rewrapping Duo-kun's back in the plastic convenience store sack it had apparently originally come in.

It actually hurt to see how quickly he could consign himself back to his solitude. She fought the urge to rub at the burn in her chest from it. An overly developed sense of empathy had always been one of her biggest faults and one of the biggest drawbacks to being Sailor Moon.

Wait… what? Was she… getting some of her powers back?


	21. Power

Slipping away from the three guys she was currently staying with wasn't as hard as she might have suspected it would be. No one had actually said a word when she got up and walked into her room. She could feel eyes tracking her every movement, and she rather suspected that they were Trunks-kun's.

He was probably going to follow her in here in a few minutes. That was all right. She just needed a few moments on her own to check this.

She fished the brooch containing the Ginzuishou out of her pocket… and then stopped, unable to make herself open it. She wasn't sure, she suddenly found, that she was ready to discover if her powers were back yet or not. If they were, then that would be wonderful; it would certainly give them a leg up on the eventual fight they would end up having against the Reapers.

If they were not back, though, then that would be a whole other thing, she supposed. It wouldn't be a good thing, that was for certain, not when they needed powers, powers like hers and Trunks-kun's.

No, she needed to make herself go ahead and do this. She wasn't going to know until she did it, and she wasn't going to have the privacy to do it for much longer.

Slowly, nervously, she opened the brooch. If she had been expecting the Ginzuishou to have changed shapes again or anything, she would have been sorely disappointed, but thankfully that had not been one of her expectations. But some of the shine she hadn't realized until now that it was missing was now back.

If that meant that the Ginzuishou's power was back on…

No, she needed to have a quick test of it first, something small, something she could control. It didn't have to be something huge like saving the planet or even stopping an asteroid from hitting the planet or clearing the evil being that had been possessing a former Sailor Senshi. She needed something small.

 _I want something small,_ she thought to herself with no small amount of personal amusement, _and even now, all I can think about is food. Okay, Ginzuishou, I want_ onigiri _. I want_ onigiri _right here, like they serve at that place Minako-chan and I always go to._

She opened eyes that she didn't remember squeezing closed and glanced around.

_Well, that was a disappointment. Maybe my powers aren't back after alllll!_

Even in her thoughts, the last word came out a screech. While she had indeed acknowledged to herself that Trunks-kun would end up following her, she hadn't expected it quite so quickly. Had he actually said something before putting a hand against the small of her back and she had just missed it, or was this his first signal that he was in the room with her?

At least she managed to keep the yelp to herself, she thought to herself. It wasn't much of a balm to her admittedly limited pride, but it was something.

"Are you all right, Usagi-san?" he asked quietly. Oddly enough, his voice didn't seem to be as quiet as she would have thought it would be with the other two guys half a wall away. As if already guessing what she was thinking, Trunks-kun continued, "Duo-san and Heero-san are checking out the rest of the building. I think Duo-san is trying to use going up and down the stairs as a way to wake up without coffee." She offered a weak smile at that. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "I just… It felt like my powers were back for a few moments. I wanted… I tried to use some of them, but nothing happened."

One of Trunks-kun's arms wrapped around her and pulled her back against his chest, and she sagged against his warmth. "I've been getting the same—I don't know, twinges, maybe—like my powers are coming back also. So far nothing, though."

She had to ask this, and there was no time like the present. "Trunks-kun? Have you ever heard of anything called 'dragonballs'?"

She found herself abruptly turned around to face Trunks-kun, held out at arms' length, and she had no idea how it happened. "Where did you hear that?"

"In a dream, the first night after you got here. Are they real?"

"Yes." The word sounded like it had been dragged out of him, with rusty pliers maybe. "They grant wishes. They had them in the Past Time; they were long gone in my time." He was silent for a long minute before continuing. "Why did you ask, Usagi-san?"

"I had a dream last night, before they woke up, about Heero-kun and Duo-kun. If the dream where I heard about the dragonballs was correct, maybe the dream where I heard about Gundams was real too." She paused to catch her breath after saying all that so quickly. "And it's not like I've ever been able to do anything like this before."

"So you have new powers showing up," he concluded.

She nodded. "I suppose. I just know that I was able to decide to trust them because of that dream." Realizing briefly what that might sound like, she added, "You I trusted from the moment I saw you. Other people I need convincing on."

"I'm not sure _I_ trust them yet."

"Good. I think one of us needs to stay skeptical on this." Because while she wasn't completely sure she could trust this newfound ability, she had found it too easy to jump quickly into trust, even when she really should be resisting the urge to do that. "I don't think I can be."

"Consider skepticism my new ability then."

She wanted to smile at the words, since they were almost certainly intended to draw that response from her. Instead she found herself wrapping her arms around Trunks-kun's waist and burying her head against his chest.

 _I wish Trunks-kun had even_ some _of his powers back,_ she thought to herself miserably.

She suddenly found herself at arms' length away from Trunks-kun again. A white-blue haze, almost like a fire, surrounded him. His eyes slid closed, and slowly the light died down, seeming to be absorbed into his skin. And that was certainly going into the top ten weirdest things she had seen in her lifetime.

 _Wait… Was this what Trunks-kun was talking about, about using his_ ki _?_

"Trunks-kun?" she whispered.

"What did you do, Usagi-san?" Despite the words, he sounded… amazed, surprised even. It certainly didn't sound like a bad thing.

"I…" She trailed off, cleared her throat, and then tried again. "I wished for you to have your powers back…" She gestured to the Ginzuishou helplessly, completely at a loss for what she should be saying or even what she meant by what she had managed to say.

"It worked. My God… It worked, Usagi-san!"

In the split second before he claimed her lips, she thought to herself, _So I can't make wishes for myself; they have to be for other people. That's_ my _new power._

And then Trunks-kun's lips were on hers, his tongue nudging its way between them, and the Ginzuishou and powers were the last thing on her mind.


	22. Enigma

It wasn't really any surprise that Trunks-kun had almost immediately gone to train after something like this. If she had gotten even a fraction of her own abilities back, she would have been out there as well, as Eternal Sailor Moon. God, she missed it. She had sometimes hated the responsibilities that came with being Sailor Moon, but right now she missed being able to transform. She _missed_ it.

But she could use the Ginzuishou now. That was a step in the right direction as far as she was concerned. It didn't seem like a huge jump from using the Ginzuishou to being able to transform.

She did feel as though there might have been a change in her transformation again. It probably shouldn't have been too much of a surprise. Even if she hadn't transformed in two years, she had still been Eternal Sailor Moon for three years. It was longer than she had had any of her other transformations.

It almost felt like the words to transform were just beyond her grasp so far, but they wouldn't stay away forever. If the past six years, the time since she had first become Sailor Moon, had taught her nothing else, they had taught her well that, no matter the nature of the difficulty, she would eventually be able to transform again.

It might take some time and some pain, but it would eventually happen. She just had to wait and work to make it happen again this time.

She just wished that she understood why the Ginzuishou was only answering some of her requests. It had answered her when she asked for Trunks-kun to get some of his powers back, but it hadn't responded to her previous request.

Maybe her previous request had been too frivolous.

_And maybe what I want to ask it is far, far too much. But it's worth a try, I suppose. Ginzuishou, send us all home._

Despite her best efforts to keep them open, she had to open her eyes again after this wish attempt. To no surprise, she was still where she had been moments ago: in a crumbling building in a strange world. Like she had suspected, that wish was too much for the still recovering crystal.

There were more questions than there were answers at this point—why had the Ginzuishou started back working, what kind of wishes was it willing to grant, and why it had started back working _now_ , among others—but that was fairly typical where the Ginzuishou was concerned.

The real question was what to do now.


	23. Exchange

Someone cleared his throat behind her, and she just barely resisted the urge to jump or shriek or even just yelp. She may have started slightly, but that could almost be understood under the circumstances.

It both did and did not surprise her who was in the doorway to her room though. She knew that it had to be one of her boys. That much was obvious. Trunks-kun would have said her name or touched her to get her attention, however, so that had quickly ruled him out. She would have thought Duo-kun, if only because he seemed to be the more outgoing of the pair, but it was Heero-kun instead. He didn't look entirely comfortable being there, so she smiled and asked, "Can I do something for you, Heero-kun?"

And for being as taciturn as he had shown himself to be so far, apparently he was quite adept at putting her on her ease. She certainly hadn't thought anything of adding the honorific to his name. It had been alarmingly easy to do.

He frowned slightly. Well, slightly more than normal, she should perhaps say. "I think this is yours." Somehow his words sounded more… deliberate, which didn't make a lot of sense, even in her own mind. But that wasn't as important as the fact that he was holding out her handkerchief back to her.

"It is, thank you." She glanced down as she accepted it, sticking it into one of her pants pockets, even as she stuck her brooch down into the opposite one. "Is your hand better? It looked like it was scraped pretty bad earlier."

"It's fine." And yeah, that frown was definitely growing. "You speak Japanese?"

She couldn't help it. She actually blinked, twice, _hard_. "I thought we've been talking in Japanese the whole time."

He shook his head. "I've been hearing it in English. I've been talking in English until just now."

Now that was something she hadn't even considered, and it was something brand new to worry about: that they were all speaking different languages. If they started this assault on the Reapers, all they would have to do would be withdraw whatever spell the creatures had on them all to help them understand one another; everything would turn into utter bedlam.

"But we're talking in Japanese now?" she had to ask.

He nodded. "It's been a while since I've used it, but the '-kun' was a tip-off."

And that was a good point. His first day here, she and Trunks-kun had quibbled over which honorific he was going to use for her. Maybe that meant they were both actually speaking Japanese? It was a small hope at this point.

"Duo doesn't understand it, though. I think he's been hearing and saying everything English also," he continued, though admittedly he looked a little surprised that he was still speaking, as if he hadn't really planned to say anything.

She decided it was best not to say anything on that subject and instead offered a playful grimace and commented, "I've been told that my English is atrocious at best. I don't know where Trunks-kun stands on the matter. Let's hope we can all just keep hearing the same thing, no matter what language we're all speaking."

"How is that even possible?" he muttered under his breath, though _just_ enough that she could hear it.

Meant to hear it or not, she decided to go ahead and answer. "The Reapers, they've been taking powers from most of us when they bring us here. From everything I've heard, you and Duo-kun might be the first ones who have been brought here without some kind of talent or power or kind of magic that they need. They're probably using someone's magic to make it so we can all understand each other." And she was going to politely ignore the snort he made at the word 'magic'… because apparently some of Trunks-kun's politeness was rubbing off on her. "That's my best guess anyway."

"There is no such thing as magic." Well, that was adamant. Admittedly, he didn't sound nearly as certain as it seemed he wanted to, but he was making a definite statement.

"I wish I could get to my powers, Heero-kun," she admitted. "I could show you a thing or two about magic." She added a smile and a wink to the end of the sentence, because by no means was it a threat. Just a promise that once she was Sailor Moon again, everyone around her was going to see magic in a big time way.

And honestly, she couldn't wait.


	24. Hidden

Despite some initial disagreements regarding the existence of magic, she was happy to say that Heero-kun seemed fairly agreeable. Magic was apparently perhaps a bit of a sore spot for him, so she had decided to leave the subject be until she had her own back.

The minute she did, though, she was turning into Sailor Moon and staying that way until they were off this crazy world. (And she was going to keep using 'world' for it, because she didn't know if it was a planet or a dimension or even just an island or something. There was no way of knowing, not without taking some really stupid chances, like going exploring outside the remains of the city.)

The words still seemed so close. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that 'eternal' was still part of the transformation phrase, but beyond that, she didn't know. She couldn't even fathom a guess. Most of the stuff once she transformed just came to her, as if from the ether. Some of them might have even been made up by the ether, such as 'Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss'. She still wasn't too sure on that one. 'Moon Princess Halation' made a tiny bit more sense than that, after all.

But that wasn't the issue right now. Right now, the issue was that it was past midday and Trunks-kun hadn't come up for lunch, which should have been cause for concern if she hadn't been able to hear him out the back windows. So she was taking one of the _bentos_ downstairs to him.

Unlike Trunks-kun, she wasn't about to just drop out of a third story window; and yes, she had nearly had a heart attack when he had done that; that he wasn't broken and bleeding on the concrete below was something of a miracle as far as she was concerned. So she had to circle around the long way to get to the back of the building, watching all around to her to make sure none of the Carrions were in sight, because wouldn't that just be a brilliant thing: make plans to take out the Reapers and get taken out herself by a Carrion instead?

Thankfully, though, everything was quiet. There were no signs of the creatures around, at least not right now. That was a good thing as far as she was concerned, a very good thing. It meant, if nothing else, that she could visit their small hidden back courtyard without any unwanted visitors tagging along, even if the entire way out there was more than a little nerve-wracking, watching over her shoulder at every moment.

She ducked under a broken section of fencing and stepped into the courtyard. Once again, she found herself blinking hard. While she had seen the… aura, for lack of a better word… that had occurred when Trunks-kun got his powers back, she hadn't been expecting anything like this. It almost seemed unbelievable. Why anything should be unbelievable now, she didn't know, but this? This seemed to strain credulity.

"Trunks-kun!" she finally called out, grabbing his attention. She held out the _bento_ in one hand. "Lunch!"

He set down on the ground cautiously, only a few steps away from her, and offered her a sheepish and adorable grin. "You didn't have to bring it out here yourself, Usagi-san."

"It's not a problem. I like the view; I had to come see it more up close." And there was that faint flush again. She probably should not enjoy teasing it out of him so often, but it was wonderful to her to see it. "You didn't tell me you could fly, Trunks-kun."

He shrugged, sitting down on a broken slab of concrete with the _bento_ , gesturing her to have a seat next to him. "Until this much of my powers came back, I couldn't." 'This much'? So she had only managed to get him part of his powers back. Maybe it would be enough. "It's only been, what, five days? Since we've been here?" She nodded. "It feels like a lot longer that I haven't had them, haven't been able to sense anything or do more than the basics of fighting. I felt like I should… get reacquainted with what I can do."

She nodded slowly. "I know what you mean. It feels like it's been forever since I've been able to transform. It's like part of me is missing." Trunks-kun nodded in commiseration without slowing down eating in the least. "Trunks-kun? Heero-kun pointed something out to me, and… What language are you speaking?"

Well, that certainly slowed him down a bit. "Japanese. Why?"

She let out a sigh of relief. "I am too. Heero-kun and Duo-kun are speaking English, though. They're hearing us speak in English. It has to be something the Reapers are doing, right?"

"Letting us understand each other, form groups and all. To keep us compliant," he surmised darkly.

"And all they have to do is cut the connection. Those of us who speak different languages…" She trailed off, not sure she really wanted to go too far into that possibility.

"They'll be bringing in people to counter us getting our powers back. We'll have to be prepared for that," he dourly predicted.

Could they even really say she had her powers back? She could make wishes on the Ginzuishou and have some of them come true, but that was about it. Until she could transform again…

Until she could transform again, she was going to have to depend on Trunks-kun—and maybe Duo-kun and Heero-kun, she added to herself—to help her stay safe. She just wasn't used to trying to fight as a regular person with no access at all to her magic. She just wasn't any good at it, as Trunks-kun trying to train her in fighting had more than proven. And she was _not_ going to ask Heero-kun if he had a gun she could borrow to defend herself; that, she already knew, would not go over well in the least.

That settled it. She _had_ to learn her new transformation phrase, so she could be Sailor Moon again—and maybe be of some help to her boys.

"You're thinking about something awfully hard, Usagi-san."

She started guiltily then grinned. "Well… Just trying to come up with something." She sighed, abruptly feeling a whole lot more serious. Turning to face him, she commented quietly, "Right now, I'm not a lot of help to you guys. I can't fight without my powers; you and I have already proven that; and I don't know which wishes the Ginzuishou is willing to grant. It gave you back your powers, but it wouldn't send us all home."

And really, she had some theories on that, though she wasn't too sure she was ready to voice them aloud. Either all she could do was grant wishes for other people, or else the Ginzuishou had picked up on the fact that she wasn't ready to be separated from her boys just yet.

…'her boys'? Where had that come from? When exactly had she laid claim to all three of them? Okay, she knew that she had laid claims to Trunks-kun, but when had she claimed Duo-kun and Heero-kun?

 _Maybe it was around the time I started adding the honorifics to their names,_ she decided. It seems as close to correct as anything.

"Usagi-san, I'm not sure if I can speak for Duo-san and Heero-san in this, but you've done a lot to take care of us since we've been here." Trunks-kun's arm slipped around her shoulders, and he pulled her close to his side. When he spoke again, his voice was much softer, much more intimate. "Let us take care of you where we can."

She nodded slightly; however she couldn't say for certain that she believed that. She hadn't been doing that much over the last few days. Trunks-kun was pretty self-sufficient, though he did have an unfortunate tendency to push himself hard. She made sure there was food enough for everyone and that he rested sometimes, but those were small things as far as she was concerned.

Or maybe what Trunks-kun meant was that she had stayed by all of them when they first arrived and were unconscious. It seemed like it should be insignificant to her, but apparently it meant something to Trunks-kun. Maybe people didn't do stuff like that where he came from. She just couldn't imagine leaving anyone out there in circumstances like this.

"All right," she agreed quietly. It certainly was not like she believed him, that she had done so much for the three of them that it was time for them to do for her, but it seemed like maybe it would be nice to be the one being taken care of for a change. "The minute I can transform again, though…"

"Of course." It sounded like that was an easy thing for Trunks-kun to agree to.

She let the silence stretch out for a few long minutes, before asking the other question that had been bothering her. "You said something before about having 'this much' of your powers back, Trunks-kun." He nodded. "Not all of them, though?"

"No," and he sounded reluctant to say this, like he knew she was going to take it as a personal failing, "not all of them. I have a large portion of them back, but not all of them." She opened her mouth, and it felt like it was to apologize. Instead he cut her off with a quick kiss. "Don't apologize. Having this much back is good. I wouldn't even be at this level without your help, so don't you dare apologize."

"You would have gotten them back." She wasn't sure why she could feel so certain of that, but she was. He definitely would have gotten them back.

"Maybe so, but it wouldn't have been in time for whatever it is that Duo-san and Heero-san are cooking up. I think we're on a deadline here, Usagi-san."

Given what Duo-kun had said about seeing the Reapers in their world, apparently creating a new holding pen for their prisoners or perhaps a place of their own (and leave their prisoners to the Carrions)… Yeah, they were probably on a deadline. How long it took to convert a new world, she didn't know. Months? Years maybe? But who knew how long they had been working. It could be ready to go next week or in another decade or two. There were just too many variables. They had to be prepared for sooner rather than later.

"I think we might be," she agreed.

"I'm going to go talk Tenchi-san tomorrow. It's worth a shot seeing if anyone else has ever tried to get out of here."

She nodded. "I still want to try the Thunder Emperor. If he's powerful enough that the Reapers fear him, he might be someone we can use."

"You're not going alone."

"Absolutely not! I had to break it you, but one of you guys is going to have to come with me." She bumped her shoulder against his lightly. "One of my boys is just going to have to escort me."


	25. Technology

"The machine out front?" Duo-kun's voice cut through her thoughts. "Does anyone know what it is?"

This was the first time that they had all managed to sit down to a meal together since there had come to be four of them living in this small space. Maybe they were doing pretty good, since it was also the first dinner since Duo-kun and Heero-kun had come to be here.

"It's a time machine." Trunks-kun didn't even look up from his food to answer, his tone matter of fact. She would say that Duo-kun and Heero-kun were going to have to get over the fact that Trunks-kun ate like someone was going to take it away from him, but in truth, it looked as though Duo-kun ate in much the same fashion, though he certainly talked a lot more while he ate than Trunks-kun did and the proportions of food vanishing was quite a bit smaller, maybe more a normal size. Still, for someone who deliberately skipped breakfast, he was certainly going at dinner.

"A what?" That came out pretty close to a shriek, and she had to bite her tongue, _hard_ , to keep from giggling. "Tell me I didn't hear you right."

She nodded. "It's a time machine all right. Definitely."

Glancing off to her other side, she snuck a quick look at Heero-kun. It hadn't even been a day yet since their arrival, but she was still making an effort to try to learn his body language and cues. For instance, right now, he looked completely disinterested in the conversation, intent only on his meal before him, but he was definitely paying attention to what was being said. Unless she completely missed her guess, he was actually very keenly paying attention to what was being said. This seemed to interest him, though there was no way to tell it by looking at his face. He had one of the best poker faces she had ever seen, if not _the_ best one.

"Who in the world…? No, who in _what_ world came here in that?"

"I did" immediately came from Trunks-kun.

"Wow…" Duo-kun trailed off for a long second before immediately picking back up full steam. "Who came up with a time machine? Okay, scratch that: I can think of half dozen or so scientists in my own world who could come up with a time machine in theory. Who actually made it _work_? I always heard that sort of stuff was purely science fiction."

Apparently, Trunks-kun was going to let the other man squirm until he finished eating. Thankfully for Duo-kun, that didn't take that long. "It's my mother's design. It took her a long time to come up with a working model, but it's all her design, her work."

"I would like to take a look at it." She blinked in surprise, her eyes shooting quickly back over to Heero-kun. She certainly hadn't expected him to jump into this conversation. Perhaps this was the sort of thing that interested him. She was having a hard time getting a sense of that off of him.

Trunks-kun nodded, climbing carefully to his feet. "I'm not sure how much I can tell you about how it works and all. My mother built it. I just fly it." He frowned darkly. "Or I guess I should say 'I just flew it'. It's been a bit… gutted. There wasn't much Usagi-san and I could salvage from it."

In turn, Duo-kun and Heero-kun stood as well, almost in unison. "Maybe there's something we can come up with," Duo-kun breezily stated, rocking back and forth on his heels, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his uniform pants. "It's worth a shot, right?"

"Maybe." Trunks-kun's blue eyes shot back over to her. "Care to join us, Usagi-san?"

She grinned. It wasn't as if she knew the slightest thing about technology or mechanics or anything like that, but at least it was being included in what was going on. More than that, it was a chance to hang out with her boys while they did something at least two of them were clearly very interested in.

"Sure." She let Trunks-kun pull her to her feet and followed them out of the building. Once outside, she made herself comfortable in nearly the exact same spot where she had kept watch on Trunks-kun when he first arrived. This time, though, she had three boys to keep an eye on.

 _At least it's a very pretty sight I have to keep an eye on_ , she thought to herself in amusement. She had known from the second she laid eyes on him that Trunks-kun was gorgeous. She didn't think anyone would blame her for thinking the same thing about her other two boys, not if they had eyes to _see_ her other two boys because _wow_. And yeah, she might be in a relationship with Trunks-kun, but she wasn't blind and looking wasn't touching.

 _Not unless Trunks-kun happens to be interested too._ And there was that voice in the back of her mind again, the one that sounded so much like Minako-chan, giving advice that was way more detailed and possibly perverted than she strictly needed. She had Trunks-kun; at this point, having both of her other boys too would be selfish…

Wouldn't it?


	26. Twilight

Heero-kun had been exploring the inner works of Trunks-kun's time machine for hours now. He was absolutely silent in there, and so she couldn't exactly tell what it was he was up to. Even Duo-kun had wandered away by now, though not very far.

She probably shouldn't have too surprised that the time machine had been stripped pretty bare by the time they got out to it tonight. Even the pilot seat was gone.

That didn't seem to matter much to Heero-kun, though. He had managed to pry a few panels open and was down into what Duo-kun had called 'the guts' of it now. Whatever it was he had found was apparently quite interesting to him.

She had no idea what it was he saw in there that was so fascinating. To her, the wires and gears and such in there all looked pretty much the same. She had been staring since Duo-kun and Trunks-kun wandered off to the far side of the street to talk about something, and she still hadn't made any sense of it. Obviously, that wasn't the case for Heero-kun.

"Usagi."

Anyone else might have phrased that as a question, she thought to some amusement, but not Heero-kun. Apparently that just wasn't how he worked. From him, it was more a demand for her attention. "Yes?"

"You wouldn't happen to have a pin or anything for your hair, would you? To hold it up?"

Completely without thought, she reached up and patted at the twin buns on top of her head. She already knew the answer to that. "No, sorry, I don't." Heero-kun merely nodded, going back to what he was doing before. "Is there something I can help with instead?"

He shook his head, but then after a moment, he expanded on that. "There's a small latch here holding this panel in place. It's about bobby pin size. I'll come back to it in the morning. Duo might have something I can use then."

"So what exactly are you looking for, Heero-kun?" She had been biting down on that question for what felt like hours now. It couldn't have been that long, though, since it was still twilight.

"You and Trunks say this thing could travel through time." She nodded. That was what Trunks-kun told her, and she thoroughly believed it. "If I can figure out how it works and do some reverse engineering on it, maybe it can be rigged to send us all back to our respective… points of origin."

First off, that was a rather impressive speech for Heero-kun. Clearly, if she wanted to hear a speech from him, she needed to present him with an impressive technology puzzle. Good to know, for future reference. Secondly and probably more importantly… "You think you can do that? Make Trunks-kun's time machine send us all home?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. Trunks said his mother built this?" She nodded, even though he wasn't exactly looking at her. All his attention was on the machine in front of him. "She's a genius then. I've never seen work like this before. It's impressive."

 _More impressive than the Gundams?_ she wanted to ask. She made herself hold onto that question for a bit yet. She wasn't sure if she wanted to tell the two of them that she had seen their world, their past. There was something… intimate about that.

Instead, she looked up at the sky, stretching as she stood. "There's not a lot of light left, Heero-kun. We should probably all head in." She pitched the last part loud enough for the other two to hear her as well. Trunks-kun nodded, and he and Duo-kun started back. It wasn't exactly a long journey, but it wasn't the easiest terrain. Besides, unless she was gravely mistaken, Trunks-kun seemed to be playing the whole flying thing close to the chest. She couldn't say that she blamed him for that.

Heero-kun nodded. Quickly but quietly, he began to reattach the panels to the side of the machine he had been working on. It didn't make a lot of sense at first, since he had worked so hard at getting them off, but once he had the first done and had moved to start on the second, she understood. He was only partially reattaching them. They looked intact to the casual observer, and if she hadn't been looking at it for so long, she probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

Hopefully this small measure should keep most scavengers out of 'the guts' of the time machine, at least until Heero-kun had had the chance to finish working this miracle he was trying for.

He did keep out a few small chips and… She thought that Ami-chan called them 'circuit boards'. Maybe he was going to try to work with them a while longer once they got indoors. Well, they did have the crank lantern to put out some light into the night. She and Trunks-kun had avoided using it as much as possible, trying not to draw too much attention to themselves, up until last night, when they had used it while sitting up with their two new arrivals.

If Heero-kun wanted to use it into the night to work on this, then that was between him and Duo-kun. Personally, she was going to do her level best not to pay any attention to whatever any of her boys might get up to, because she was planning on sleeping once they got upstairs.

Still, it would be best to ask instead of just assuming that that was what Heero-kun was up to. "Going to work on those for a bit tonight?" she questioned quietly.

He nodded. "There should be some kind of data encoded on this. I'm going to see what I can get out of it without a computer."

 _So with a computer, he could do more with it? He might even be able to make this crazy idea work? Man… Then it'd be great if he had one, I guess,_ she thought dourly.

"Maybe there's something on there you can find without one?" she offered hopefully.

"Worth a shot, right, buddy?" Duo-kun answered instead, dropping an arm around Heero-kun's shoulders. It seemed very telling to her that Heero-kun didn't even try to shrug it off, leaving it as it was.

And maybe it was equally as telling that Heero-kun had been willing to answer her questions. She wasn't going to get into that right now.

And she wasn't going to get into the laptop that was sitting in the middle of Duo-kun and Heero-kun's bedroom when they came up the stairs either.

Clearly, the Ginzuishou liked her boys as much as she did.


	27. Obsess

She had tried sleeping in her room, but after a few hours of Heero's feverish typing on the keyboard in the training room, she had moved into Trunks-kun's room. It wasn't a lot quieter, but at least the light was dimmer. It made it easier to fall asleep.

She had been six nights without the bright lights of Tokyo surrounding her, and she was already used to the darkness of the nights here. It was funny how that had happened—and happened so quickly at that. It seemed like it had been a whole lot longer than just six days and nights, but she had been carefully keeping count. The sun had risen and fallen just six times since she and Trunks-kun had been here.

And she was rapidly getting used to having Trunks-kun's arms around her as she fell asleep and when she woke up in the morning. _Now this is something I could certainly stand to get used to,_ she thought rather happily, snuggling in closer to his side.

Weirdly, it felt like the nights were getting colder than they had been when they first arrived. Maybe this was the beginning of this world's winter season. She would have thought Tenchi-san would have mentioned it if it was, though. Maybe he forgot.

Still, if it kept up much longer, then she was going to have to see that seamstress Tenchi-san mentioned, at least to get them some sort of blankets and winter jackets. If Duo-kun was going to skip breakfast every morning, maybe she could stash enough of that back to be payment.

Thankfully, Trunks-kun had been awake when she had slipped in here. Otherwise, she might have felt bad about waking him up to curl up close to him. She wasn't about to ask, though, if Heero-kun was keeping him up as well or if he had already been awake for some other reason.

She frowned slightly, glaring at the wall in the direction of the training room, like if she stared hard enough, Heero-kun might feel her displeasure and knock off for the night. Clearly Duo-kun had decided that he didn't want all of this going on in the same room with him, if he had exiled Heero-kun to the training room to work on it.

She hadn't heard a peep out of Duo-kun. If he could sleep through this, then clearly either he was more exhausted than she was or stuff like this wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence where Heero-kun was concerned.

Trunks-kun sighed quietly. She felt it more than heard it, his chest moving beneath her head and his breath stirring her hair. "I'm not sure giving Heero-san a computer was the best idea," he commented just loudly enough for her to hear. "He's already obsessed with it."

"I didn't know I was doing it," she returned just as quietly. She was quiet for a moment longer before continuing. "He thinks he might be able to use your time machine to send us all back home."

In the faint light spilling out from the training room, she could see Trunks-kun lift an eyebrow questioningly. "Do you think he can do it?"

"This is all beyond me—years beyond where my world is at. And me? If it's more technologically complicated than a cell phone, I'm lost. He seemed fairly certain."

"You don't sound too pleased with the idea."

To her surprise, she really wasn't. She would have thought she would be more than ready to go home by now, but she was finding that that really wasn't the case. "I don't want us to get split up," she admitted. "I've… gotten very used to having you around, Trunks-kun."

He was silent for a long, long moment before replying, "I've gotten very used to having you around too, Usagi-san."

_Well, that is certainly a good thing to hear,_ she thought happily to herself. It wasn't quite a declaration of love or anything, but it was still something. It was definitely something good, as far as she was concerned.

"What were you and Heero-san talking about earlier, over the time machine?" He snickered, and completely unable to help it, she smiled in return. "He looked so serious, and you looked so…"

"Lost?" she supplied with a laugh. "I was _so_ lost. He was talking about how he might be able to make it send us all home, if he could figure out how to reverse engineer your mother's work. Oh, and how he is positive your mother is a genius."

"She would be happy to hear that. She's always complaining that no one appreciates her brains."

"I hope I get to meet her." And it was a little weird, but she really did want to meet the genius behind Trunks-kun and his time machine and everything. "What were you and Duo-kun talking about while Heero-kun was blowing my mind with technology?"

Beside her, Trunks-kun went stiff. Glancing up, there was a distinct flush to his face. It was hard to see in the limited light of the room, but she was fairly sure he was embarrassed about something. Now what in the world could they have been talking about to provoke this reaction?

"Duo-san… propositioned me."

Her eyes went wide as saucers; she couldn't help that. She sat up abruptly to stare down at Trunks-kun in nothing less than undisguised shock. "Really?" He nodded, sitting up more slowly. "What did you say?"

"I didn't. We went inside then." He pulled one knee up close to his chest, wrapping both arms around it. The position looked defensive, and she almost backed off asking about it. But there needed to be some resolution here, if they were all going to keep working together.

"What do you think about it?" she asked even more quietly than they had already been talking. This was something that was probably best kept between the two of them until a decision was made.

"I haven't been," he answered quickly. She didn't want to be the one to say it, but it sounded like the opposite when he said it so fast. She kept that thought to herself, though, and waited. Sure enough, Trunks-kun did eventually continue speaking. "I'm with you, Usagi-san."

God, he sounded like this bothered him—and quite a lot by the ragged tone of his voice. She immediately scratched any idea she might have been entertaining about playing this straight and serious. Instead, she conjured up a wink. "I've been told I share well."

The small laugh Trunks-kun managed to get sounded a bit breathy, but it was amused and that was a pretty huge improvement. "What exactly are you saying, Usagi-san? So we're on the same page."

"I'm saying…" What was she saying? Ah, yes… "I'm saying, if you're at all interested and Duo-kun asks again, tell him we're a package deal: he either gets both of us or neither of us. Sound good?"

He was silent and still for a long moment, obviously weighing that over in his own mind thoroughly before finally reaching a decision. "Sounds good, Usagi-san."


	28. Data

"Theoretically, it is possible to do," Heero announced in response to her question, "but you would have break every law of physics to do it."

She had asked about his progress with the chips and microprocessors he had taken from the time machine last night over breakfast. She had expected a negative answer, but this was so very, very far from what she had imagined.

She frowned, confused. "How do you mean, Heero-kun? I'm not following."

"First off, time travel? Should be theoretically impossible. So, Trunks, your mother is a certified genius." To her amusement, Trunks-kun just nodded his agreement, because apparently there was no arguing the woman's intellect. "I can see the command lines she used to make it possible, and they're… inspired."

Duo-kun snorted. "Earlier this morning, you said they were either a certified genius or certifiably insane."

Duo-kun was sitting between Heero-kun and Trunks-kun, pretty much directly across from her. He'd been picking at the remains of Heero-kun's breakfast and had been through a bottle of water already. She had worried briefly if the Reapers would figure out he didn't eat in the mornings and drop the amount of food accordingly before she had a chance to see someone about winter clothing, but thankfully the amount of food had remained the same. It might be the amount needed for the exchange, considering she had only eaten half of hers as well so that there would be enough.

She had been figuring that there would be some awkwardness this morning, with Heero-kun up until all hours (he had still been going when she fell back asleep) and what happened between Trunks-kun and Duo-kun. She could read some nervousness coming off Trunks-kun—and that only because she had touched every inch of that body and knew when it was tense.

She wasn't picking up much of anything from Duo-kun. It wasn't because she couldn't read him, because yesterday it had been as easy as anything she could think of, yet today there was nothing there. He still _acted_ the same, but all the body language cues she had been using before were gone.

Thinking back to her dream, that might not have been too surprising. Both Duo-kun and Heero-kun were warriors. In different ways from her and in different ways from Trunks-kun, that was true, but it didn't change the fact that they had been—and maybe still were—soldiers. Of course they would be able to hide stuff like that if they put their minds to it. She knew she couldn't, but that was because she wore all her emotions on her sleeve for the world to see. There was no packing them away for her.

Heero-kun smirked over at Duo-kun. Trunks-kun at least snickered. "Maybe they both apply," he conceded. She laughed at the response. "So it is possible then, Heero-san?"

Heero-kun nodded once. "It will take a separate power source and some absolutely certifiable coding, but it should be possible." He sighed, glancing down at his lap then back up to meet Trunks-kun's eyes. "The original coding is set to go from one certain point in time to another certain point in time. I'm not sure if I can do too much to change that. It might take everyone to the same location."

"So there might not be a way to take us all back to our own worlds," she surmised, finally jumping back into the conversation.

"It's hard to say," Heero-kun conceded. "At this point, there's no way to know for sure. It's all quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, and neither of those are my strong suit. I can't make any promises at this point, Usagi, Trunks."


	29. Melancholy

"I'm going to see about getting us some warmer clothes," she announced once breakfast was over. "It's been getting colder the past two nights. We're going to need something more."

"You're not going alone." Trunks-kun didn't seem to notice that both of the other two's attentions focused on him, but she caught it out of the corner of her eye. Oh yeah, they had accidentally left some stuff out of their earlier discussion regarding the other inhabitants of this world. They would have to rectify that sooner rather than later. Most of her attention was on Trunks-kun, though.

"I wasn't planning on it," she reassured him soothingly. Turning back to Duo-kun and Heero-kun, she explained, "The Carrions have been known to eat people apparently. No one should go out alone."

"They don't like heights too much either. They're fast, but they have no stamina, so it's possible to outrun them," Trunks-kun added darkly. "Tenchi-san said that they do seem to prefer women."

"So Usagi definitely doesn't go anywhere alone," Duo-kun finished. "I understand."

She tried her best not to seethe or even be annoyed. Those were the facts, and she supposed that they did need to know all of them. It wasn't any of their faults that it meant she had to be taken care of, that she had to have an escort at any time she left their building. Really, she shouldn't have even gone into the back courtyard by herself.

The whole thing made her mad, but there was nothing to do for it really, was there? And that made the whole thing depressing as could be. But she really needed to stop herself from going all maudlin and melancholy on the subject. There was nothing to do for it except just to deal with it.

"But one person here alone should be all right?" Heero-kun persisted.

Trunks-kun nodded. "That's pretty much what Tenchi-san said."

"I'm going to keep working on this programming, in that case. The three of you should go. Trunks, you said you needed to talk to this Tenchi person anyway. Duo and Usagi can go see whoever it is they need to see about warmer clothes."

It made sense. They would all have to stop at Tenchi-san's anyway, so she could find out where she and apparently Duo-kun needed to go to find the person who was responsible for the clothes. It would work out well and should give Trunks-kun long enough to talk to Tenchi-san about any previous escape attempts.

It would also mean that she could talk to Duo-kun alone for at least a few minutes. That was good. She had some questions she wanted to ask him, mostly about what he had said to Trunks-kun and how serious he was by it.

She had only known Trunks-kun for seven days now, almost as long as she had been in this crazy place. But she had long since laid claim to him, more so than she could remember claiming anyone ever before in her life, and she thought that maybe she was starting to know him.

From everything she could tell about Trunks-kun, he wasn't the kind of person who got into a relationship for the short term. She wasn't either, so it worked out well that way. But was Duo-kun proposing long term or short? And he had to understand that they were going to be a package deal.

And then there was Heero-kun, but that was an entirely different matter entirely. Or was it? Was Duo-kun propositioning Trunks-kun because Heero-kun wouldn't give him the time of day? Because that would add an entire other level or something to this whole thing, and she wasn't sure she liked the sound of that at all.

She nodded her agreement to Heero-kun's proposal. "Sounds good to me. Trunks-kun? Duo-kun?"

To her relief, they both nodded their agreement, and neither of them even looked especially reluctant or anything. It was a step in the right direction as far as she was concerned.

That settled, she started gathering up the remains of her own breakfast and the food Duo-kun had never even touched, stashing them in one of the convenience store bags their lunch _bentos_ had come in yesterday. That would make transport much easier.

And maybe while they were out, she could also manage to speak to the Thunder Emperor. Tenchi-san said he was mad and maybe he was—she wouldn't know that for sure until she met him after all and she wasn't going to jump to any conclusions based on what other people said—but the Reapers feared him and it sounded like the Carrions stayed out of his territory.

If they were able to try to find a way out of here, they were going to need all the help they could get, because she really didn't think the Reapers were going to give them or their powers up easily. The Thunder Emperor might be exactly what they needed.

She hoped anyway. Hopefully there were some people here who weren't as accepting of their situation as Tenchi-san had become. It was going to be a fight to get free. They were going to have to have fighters to do it.


	30. Scramble

Tenchi-san at least had been willing to come out to meet them on the street to give them the directions they would need to find Sylphiel-san's place. He had mentioned before that Sylphiel-san lived close to the Thunder Emperor's territory. What a wonderful coincidence that she was also the one behind the new clothes. It worked out well for the second half of her plan.

It also gave her some vague ideas as to the size of the city. Sylphiel-san was perhaps a block or two from Tenchi-san's home and just on the outskirts of the Thunder Emperor's territory, which apparently extended to the far northern edge of the city, a distance of another few blocks. The place she shared with her boys was nearly in the center of the city, but the entire region south of where they lived was apparently the Carrions' territory.

Well, it certainly explained why she had seen one so quickly when she first set out her first day here.

It shouldn't take them more than a few minutes to walk the distance between Tenchi-san's place and Sylphiel-san's place, depending on the terrain. It might not be long enough to find out what she wanted to know from Duo-kun, but she was still going to give it her best.

They left Trunks-kun to talk with Tenchi-san and started north. About four buildings north, a building east, then another building north had been the instructions they had been given. Another two buildings past Sylphiel-san place were stepping into the Thunder Emperor's territory, and she wanted to make their clothing order first.

She waited until they had walked a moment or two and until she heard Trunks-kun and Tenchi-san head inside the older man's building before she spoke up. "Trunks-kun told me you propositioned him, Duo-kun. Is that right?"

To her surprise, she got no more of a reaction of shock than a brief stumble, quickly correctly within a step or two. "He told you then, huh?" If anything, he sounded more amused than anything else. She shrugged, since obviously there was no denying it. "Is this going to be a 'warn me off your man' moment?"

She couldn't help it: she had to snicker in amusement. "Trunks-kun is more than capable of making up his own mind. I just wanted to get your side of the story, Duo-kun."

"He's hot. I mean, have you seen him?"

She grinned. "Most definitely. You do know he and I are together, right?" He shrugged in answer. "Don't care?"

"Oh, I certainly care. I don't poach. I was just letting him know, if he was interested and you two…"

"I'm certainly hoping _that_ doesn't happen. Still, like I told Trunks-kun, it's up to him. I don't think he does short term relationships, though, Duo-kun."

"It would be for as long as we're here."

She stopped still where she stood. "I thought we weren't planning on that being much longer." He shrugged again, which as far as she was concerned totally was _not_ an answer. "Fine. I'll tell you this like I told Trunks-kun. The decision for 'yes' or 'no' is totally up to him, but the two of us are a package deal. If you want Trunks-kun, you're getting me too."

"Usagi… Do you…" Duo-kun trailed off, but the meaning was pretty obvious.

"Yes, I mean it exactly what it sounds like it means. So keep that in mind in this."

"How do you know if I even like women, Usagi?"

This time, it was her turn to shrug. "I don't. I guess it's no different than you knowing if Trunks-kun likes guys or not as well. But if we do this—and it's only if Trunks-kun decides to that we would—I'll warn you now that I'm like Trunks-kun: I don't do short term."

With that said, she started walking on in the direction that Tenchi-san had indicated Sylphiel-san lived in. After a moment of only hearing her own footsteps, she finally was able to pick up the sounds of Duo-kun scrambling to catch back up.

She almost regretted not saying anything about Heero-kun, but not yet. She had already given Duo-kun quite a lot to think about as it was. There was no sense overloading him at this point.

There would be time enough for that later on, she suspected, after all.


	31. Worn

Everything that she had been expecting where this Sylphiel-san was concerned, the woman before her was pretty far from being. She had been expecting someone a lot older; Sylphiel-san was only a few years older than Trunks-kun. She had expected someone dour and matronly; Sylphiel-san was spry and chipper—and was wearing an actual cape. In short, everything she had pictured, Sylphiel-san was not.

But she was most assuredly the person that they had been sent to see, and she most assuredly was the person behind keeping everyone in clothes.

General introductions quickly set aside, she set about making her order: "blankets and winter clothes for four people. Three men and me."

Sylphiel-san smiled and nodded, heading back into a back section of the room where a few small dressers sat. "Without measurements," she commented mildly, taking a few items out of one of them, "these are the best I have. I can start measurements on the two of you today and get the other two later."

She bowed deeply, hair dropping over her shoulder to scrape the floor. "Thank you, Sylphiel-san. You are very kind to be helping us like this." She set the bag with the food on the floor in front of where she stood. "It's not much, but please accept this for your help."

It really wasn't enough, not for all Sylphiel-san was talking about doing for them. It only made it worse when the other woman waved it off as she handed over the clothes and blankets. "Anything you can spare is enough, Usagi-san. Cloth and sewing materials are part of what's dropped off for me daily, so I certainly don't mind helping other people out like this."

She nodded, bowing again briefly. "All the same, I would like to bring you something else when we come back." Between the breakfasts Duo didn't eat and if she managed to skip or halve a few meals herself every now and then, it should be a satisfactory payment.

"If you want." Though she couldn't say that Sylphiel-san sounded overly eager at the idea of an additional payment. The older woman stopped, staring at Usagi. More specifically, she was staring at her feet. "Usagi-san, does anyone else but you need new shoes?"

Duo-kun had been uncommonly quiet while exploring the room, but he turned quickly back to face her as well, as if completely surprised. It wasn't that startling, was it? Okay, yes, they were held together right now by little more than a prayer and maybe she was thinking about seeing if the Ginzuishou could repair them, but she hadn't said anything about them or their current state.

She had given thought to asking Sylphiel-san for shoes when she had first gotten her new clothes. As the nights started getting colder here, though, she had put that idea aside in favor of making sure they had enough warm clothes and blankets to make it through a winter here. She had no idea what they could be like—if it would be mild and fairly temperate or harsh and unrelenting—and it would be best to be prepared. New shoes to replace some that were quickly becoming worn were secondary to that.

"May I?" Sylphiel-san asked politely, holding out a hand. She nodded, setting the clothes down behind her, stepping out of her shoes, and handing them over. And wow, she hadn't realized that the sole of the left one had gotten quite that bad, but then these were her uniform shoes: they were certainly never meant to be worn for what amounted to cross country hiking. Maybe that they had lasted this long was a bit of a miracle. "I might have something here that could work, if you'll pardon me a moment."

She nodded, and Sylphiel-san disappeared into another room. Once the other woman left, she sank down to sit on a rather battered piece of furniture that had probably once been a sofa next to the clothes and blankets.

 _I wish I could do something for Sylphiel-san to make up for all she's doing for us,_ she thought glumly. It was a rather vague wish, but that was all she knew to make. _I don't even know what Sylphiel-san lost when she was brought here or I could try to wish it back to her._

"You didn't say anything about your shoes, Usagi," Duo-kun's voice interrupted her thoughts.

She shrugged, copying the same gesture that Duo-kun seemed to love doing at her. "I thought stuff for winter might be more appropriate, since we don't know if we'll be able to get out of here before it sets in."

"And if your feet froze before we were able to get back over here?"

And yeah, she had no good answer to that, she was sad to say, so instead she shrugged again. "I like to think I would have found enough payment to get over here again before then."

"Maybe. We don't know how harsh it is here or how quickly it sets in. Fast, I'm betting, given how much colder it was last night than the night before it. How quickly do you think you could have gotten up the payment?"

"I'm sure you've noticed, but Sylphiel-san seems to have a whole lot less food delivered than we do." She nodded at the small stash in a corner of the room. If each person here got the same amount of food, it would have been a fourth of what appeared for them; instead it was even less than that. "I could get enough up from our deliveries to make payment in a day or two."

"So we're paying her in food for the clothes?"

"It's not like money matters here."

"Usagi-san?" Sylphiel-san's voice cut through their conversation as she returned to the room, carrying a pair of knee-high boots in one hand. "It seems I do have a pair to spare, so they're yours. We seem to wear the same size."

"I can't accept this, Sylphiel-san," she objected, though admittedly, it was half-hearted at best.

The older woman grinned. "I'm afraid you have no choice, Usagi-san. You're not getting those other shoes back."

Put that way… "Thank you for your generosity, Sylphiel-san. I will do my best to repay you for this." And wow, Trunks-kun's politeness was most assuredly rubbing off on her. She yanked the boots on over her socks then tucked her jeans down over them. And what a surprise: Sylphiel-san was right about them wearing the same size shoes.

Sylphiel hand-waved away the concern, taking a seat herself on an adjacent and very worn chair. "Think nothing of it, Usagi-san."

She bit her lower lip for a long moment, debating before she asked her question. It didn't seem like anything that might offend the dark-haired woman, but Tenchi-san had been so adamant in his opinion… "Sylphiel-san? Do you know the Thunder Emperor?"

"Raitei? Of course I do." At least she sounded very casual. "He's the protector of this area. Sure Tenchi-san or one of the others must have told you about him."

She shook her head. "Very little. All Tenchi-san said was the Thunder Emperor—I mean, that Raitei-san—"

"Just Raitei. It's more of a title than a name."

Now that was intriguing. No, she had to finish saying what it was she had started. "All Tenchi-san said was that Raitei ruled part of the city, he had his powers back, and he's mad."

"Mad… would be a stretch." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one of Duo-kun's eyebrows shoot up questioningly, but he remained quietly, letting Sylphiel-san say whatever she would. "There aren't words for what Raitei is, at least not in my world. I would say that Raitei is the mask that a good man wears when he is pushed beyond his limits." She shook her head. "No, a mask is possibly not the best way to phrase it. Maybe it would be better to say that Raitei is the very dangerous, very closed off man that a good man becomes when he is pushed beyond his limits."

"Like a… persona," Duo-kun asked quietly, finally coming over to join the conversation, leaning against the sofa she still sat on, "or like a whole other person, if you don't mind my asking?"

Sylphiel-san seemed to mull this over. "I would say almost like a whole other person. I met the other Raitei once. I have to say that I rather liked Ginji-san when I met him, but then I've only met him for a few moments. Raitei himself is not intolerable company, though he's some of the quietest company I've ever had."

"Raitei visits here often?" Duo asked before she could get another question out, not that she knew what she had been about to ask. It might have even been the same thing.

"From time to time. I haven't seen him since our new arrival to this area of the city landed a few days ago, though. It's not unusual," she continued, seemingly knowing what they were about to ask before the words came out. "He's been known to vanish for weeks at the time. I do know he doesn't like to be disturbed."

She bit down on her lip again. "Can you ask him something?" Sylphiel-san nodded, leaning forward closer to Usagi. "The Reapers are getting ready to leave this world. If we fight against them, would Raitei be willing to join us?"

"Others have tried to fight the Reapers before, Usagi-san," the older woman stated cautiously. "They've all failed. Only Raitei still has access to his powers. Even I've lost mine."

_Please, Ginzuishou… Please have done what I think you did._

"What did you have before you came here, Sylphiel-san? If you don't mind my asking?"

Sylphiel-san shrugged elegantly. "I was trained in White Magic, mostly healing and defense."

_Please…_

"Can you try a spell? Just once? Please, Sylphiel-san?"

"Usagi-san… Like everyone else here, I've spent years trying my powers, trying and trying to bring them back." She sighed heavily. "They're gone. All of our powers are gone. I'm sure yours and Duo-kun's and your two friends' are all gone as well."

For a split second, she was terrified that Duo-kun might reveal the fact neither he nor Heero-kun had powers. Thankfully, though, he remained silent, just offering an inscrutable shrug.

"Please, Sylphiel-san?" she repeated. For good measure, she even pulled out her most pleading face, one that always seemed to work on her parents, Mamo-chan, and at least half of the Sailor Senshi.

The older woman sighed resignedly. She shifted to the forefront of her chair, holding one hand before her. "Defense."

For a split second, she could swear she saw a bubble forming around Sylphiel-san before it seemed to fade, leaving it completely invisible. She could still feel it, however, and given how quickly Duo-kun had shot back to his feet, apparently she wasn't the only one to pick up on it.

 _Thank you, Ginzuishou,_ she whispered gratefully. She was starting to feel a bit faint, though. Apparently even if using the Ginzuishou were all she could do, it would still be really draining to use.

Sylphiel-san blinked a couple of times in shock, but she seemed to recover herself quickly, making a brief hand gesture that apparently released the spell. "Usagi-san…?"

She offered a tired smile. "I wouldn't say they're all gone. Wouldn't you agree, Sylphiel-san?"

"How… How did you…?"

It was a bit of a white lie, but… "I got some of my own back. If we're going to get out of here, other people will need theirs back as well. With that in mind, do you think you can get Raitei to join us?"

"Or barring Raitei, then perhaps Ginji?" Duo slid in. "Or anyone under either of their protection perhaps."

"I… I'll ask Raitei the first chance I get. But what about once the Reapers are defeated?" And wasn't that a good feeling, to hear something like that said aloud already? "We can't stay here."

"There's a plan for that too," Duo continued. She had to say she appreciated it: it was giving her at least some time to recuperate. "We may not be able to get everyone back to their own worlds, but we should be able to get you off this one."

Sylphiel-san nodded, apparently already starting to recover her poise. "All right. I'll relay that to Raitei as soon as I see him. He might want to talk to you, though," she paused, considering, "for as much as Raitei talks. Where should I send him?"

"We're near the center of the city," she replied, "not too far from where Carrion territory begins." She reached out, taking the older woman's hand in hers and squeezing it reassuringly. "I should be able to give most everyone back at least some of their powers back. We may even have a way out of here. With enough people to take on the Reapers, we can do this, but we will need Raitei and his people."

Sylphiel-san nodded. "I will do what I can. Whatever Raitei decides is what he decides, though; I can't change that. But I believe you, Usagi-san." She wrapped long arms around Usagi, squeezing her tightly, before wiping at suspiciously bright eyes. "Thank you."

"Think nothing of it," she repeated back to the other woman. Moving as quickly as she dared, she unpacked the food she had brought Sylphiel-san and repacked the clothes and blankets into the same plastic convenience store bag. She offered her one more bow, not nearly as deep as the other ones, and headed out of the room, Duo-kun at her side.

She barely made it to the stairs before her knees finally gave out and she stumbled. Thankfully, Duo-kun was right beside her to catch before she either went over or went down the steps. "Are you all right?"

The smile she tried on was weak at best, but at least it was an attempt she figured. "I might have overdone it a little bit. I'll be all right in a little bit." She took a deep breath to steady herself and then tried the grin again. "I'm good. We need to get back to Trunks-kun before much longer."

The look Duo-kun was giving her was appraising. She had the distinct feeling that she was being measured against whatever Duo-kun had thought he knew about her and at least some of the previous measurements were being replaced. She certainly hoped her reevaluation was more flattering than the previous one.

"Yeah, let's get out of here," he finally stated. He wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her steady as they started down the stairs. It was going to be a long walk back to Tenchi-san's place where Trunks-kun would presumably be waiting, but it didn't seem like it would be too bad now.


	32. Collapse

It wasn't really any surprise that Trunks-kun was waiting just outside Tenchi-san's building. It wasn't like he really needed to worry about the Carrions, not now. He probably hadn't needed to worry about them before he got his powers back either; she had been able to see from a few moments after he first woke up just how strong Trunks-kun was.

He was a lot stronger now, she was willing to bet. So far, the Reapers had yet to pay any mind to him or his training outside their building, but they were probably preoccupied, either with Raitei or with preparing their new world. Or maybe they didn't know about people's new abilities until those new abilities were used against them. If Raitei was known for attacking regular people invading his territory, after all, she couldn't imagine him being more discriminating with using them against the Reapers.

And after having seen the Reapers a day and a half ago now, she could safely say that she would like to see someone attack them. Something about those creatures she had seen flying through the air before delivering Duo-kun and Heero-kun made her skin crawl.

No, maybe she would prefer not to see a Reaper get attacked, if only because that would mean she would have to actually see a Reaper again. She was pretty sure she didn't actually want that. She would have to see another one again if they did take them on head to head, yes, but that didn't mean that she was looking forward to it. She wasn't that crazy, at least not yet.

"Usagi-san!" he greeted, jogging quickly over to them. She couldn't say that she blamed him for not going with the flying right now. In front of Duo-kun and Heero-kun, eventually, might not be the worst idea, but until they knew how some of the other people around here came down on the decision of fighting the Reapers, it might be best to keep it a secret. He frowned when he stopped, seeing how heavily she was still leaning on Duo-kun. "Are you all right?"

She opened her mouth to respond, to reassure him that she was fine and would be even better in a little while, once she had rested some. Unfortunately, Duo-kun managed to get a word in first; why she was surprised by that, she didn't know. "Someone here managed to seriously overdo it giving Sylphiel back her powers and has been on the verge of collapse ever since."

"Duo-kun…" she complained, pouting a bit more than was probably attractive.

"You almost fell down the stairs, Usagi-san. There's no way in hell we're writing that off so easily," he returned.

Trunks-kun continued to stare at her while she and Duo-kun were talking, but once Duo-kun finished and she was glaring at the longhaired man, he nodded, as if coming to a decision with himself and stepped forward. "Pardon me, Duo-san, Usagi-san."

Before she could even ask what it was that he was apologizing for, she found herself swept up, being held in Trunks-kun's arms… and as far as she was concerned, she could hardly be blamed for blushing as red as Mars' _fuku_.

Duo-kun snickered, and she shot him a nasty look, one that, come to think of it, she had probably learned from Rei-chan, while she was on the subject of the Senshi of Fire. She crossed her arms over her chest, and okay, yeah, maybe she was pouting pretty bad, but that was no reason for Duo-kun to be laughing at her.

And okay, maybe if she were looking at this from the outside, she would find it at least as hilarious as Duo-kun clearly did. From this side of things, though, it wasn't too funny.

"So were you able to get everything you needed from Sylphiel-san?" Trunks-kun asked, turning to start walking towards their building, Duo-kun walking apace beside him.

Duo-kun held up the bag containing the blankets and clothes Sylphiel-san had given them. "We did. Well, we got some of it. She wants to measure all of us for better clothes at some point in the near future. She also gave Usagi some new shoes."

"And Usagi-san managed to give her back her powers, I'm taking it?"

Duo-kun nodded, a serious expression falling over his face. "She did. As weird as it is to me to say this, apparently Sylphiel has some kind of magic. She can use it for healing and defense. It's definitely working now, so if we do end up against the Reapers, I think it would be good to have her on our side, running behind the scenes."

That made a lot of sense, but she wasn't really surprised by it. Duo-kun and Heero-kun were soldiers; they knew something about strategy. It was a bit of relief, since it very much was not her strong suit. Maybe the two of them could even help get any of the other fighters—if they picked up any—into some sort of order. Barring that, maybe they could find someone among the people brought here who was an even better strategist.

She nodded her agreement with Duo-kun, temporarily setting aside her embarrassment with her situation. "It's not the same kind of magic I've used, but I could tell she's very good at what she does. She's very strong. Sylphiel-san would be a real asset, even if she won't fight." She paused, considering every conclusion she had drawn about the older woman. "Or can't fight. I'm not sure if she's much of the fighting type."

Trunks-kun sighed. "That's a good step, if nothing else. Nothing kills a fight faster than having half the fighters too injured to participate."

That sounded like experience talking and it sounded none too pleasant, so she wasn't going to ask about it. Instead she launched into another thought she had had since she first heard Sylphiel-san say what it was she could do. "Do you think she could heal your leg?"

And whoops, based on the look on Duo-kun's face, that was something that they had forgotten to mention before. "What happened to your leg?" he asked almost quietly.

"The time machine landed on it. When I got here, I guess I was ejected from the time machine, and it rolled over onto it. It didn't heal well," Trunks-kun briefly explained to the other man before then addressing her. "I'm not sure. I guess it's worth a try."

He didn't sound like he believed it was going to work. She could deal with that. She would just have to hope for it to do so for both of them. After all, she could tell that it hurt him. It was hurting him now, but it didn't seem too likely he was going to put her back down just yet. Not until they either got home or he collapsed himself. If that happened, they were just going to have to sit in the middle of the path until he got better, because she had found out the hard way that there was no moving Trunks-kun unless he was willing and able to help.

"Any other secrets you two might care to share with me?" And that was deceptively mild for Duo-kun to say. The calm tone of his voice certainly didn't match the fire in his eyes, like he was just barely holding a rather voluminous explosion in.

She and Trunks-kun exchanged a glance, each silently asking the other how much they were willing to say out loud just yet. She shrugged, more or less volunteering to go first. "I'm one of the few fighters on my own world. I used to transform into Sailor Moon. I've been bringing people's powers back with a magic jewel called the Ginzuishou." That was a huge oversimplification, but she wasn't sure what else to say. "We were at peace for the two years when I was snatched, but before that, our world was nearly destroyed by… I'm not sure what to call her… it… Chaos." She paused, considering, before finishing up with, "And apparently I'm the reincarnation of the princess of the White Moon Kingdom, Serenity. That bit is still a little beyond me."

"Beyond _you_?" Duo-kun repeated a little weakly.

Trunks-kun was quiet for a few more steps before speaking up, seemingly a bit reluctantly. "My father was the prince of an alien warrior race called the Saiyajin. You already know my mother is a genius. In my time, I'm the only fighter left alive. All the rest of the fighters were killed by the Jinzouningen, artificial humans. My mother sent me back in time to save the life of the greatest fighter. It didn't change my time, but it did save that one. I fought with them, including my father, and when I was on my way back to my own time, that's when the Reapers must have grabbed me."

Well, that was more about Trunks-kun that she had known. No, she had known most of that, barring the darker details about Trunks-kun's own time and that his father was apparently a prince. That wasn't a detail she cared too much about, though, no more than she cared overly about being Princess Serenity and—maybe—eventually becoming Neo Queen Serenity.

More and more, she was hoping that time never came. It would mean not ever having her boys again and being _stuck_ with Mamo-chan for the rest of her life. She might have loved him once—and wasn't this a revelation?—but she was starting to wonder if that was Serenity's love for Endymion, if she had ever really loved Mamo-chan for himself… like she could admit, to herself at least, that she loved Trunks-kun. Had she ever liked Mamo-chan like she was starting to like Duo-kun and Heero-kun?

"Well…" Duo-kun trailed off. "That's certainly a lot more than I was expecting. I don't know what I was expecting, but that was certainly more than it."

Trunks-kun stiffened slightly. She might have not even noticed if she wasn't held so tight against his chest. "Does that mean you've rescinded your offer?"

 _Oh?_ she thought to herself. _He's actually been considering Duo-kun's offer?_

Duo-kun paused for a split second, falling out of step with Trunks-kun before catching back up quickly. "Actually… no, it doesn't mean that. It's still on the table. Even with all of this," he put in before either of them could ask about it, "and even with Usagi reading me the riot act earlier." The grin on his face was ridiculously hopeful if you knew how to look… and she was starting to figure out how to look. "Dare I hope that means you're considering it?"

It was absolutely cute to her how pink Trunks-kun could blush, all of it confined to his cheekbones, she had discovered. "If you're willing to Usagi-san's terms: both of us or neither of us," he got out, and it was even fairly steady, "then I might be willing. I do have a question for you first, though, Duo-san."

"What's that?"

"What about Heero-san?" Well, that was fairly blunt. "A blind man can tell you're in love with him. Are the two of us replacements for him?" Actually that was _really_ very blunt.

Duo-kun slowed down, and Trunks-kun reduced his pace in response. The longhaired man's gaze and full attention was locked on the ground in front of him. "Harsh, Trunks, very harsh. Yeah, I love him. Yeah, I would be with him if he was interested at all in me."

"If Heero-kun decided tomorrow he was interested…?" she asked softly.

"I… don't know. I can't imagine it ever happening." And that was the most heartbreaking thing she could ever think of hearing. "I guess at that point, if it ever happened, I'd have to choose, though I also can't say I've ever left a lover less than amicably." He paused for a second, obviously considering something. "Asking him to join in is out of the question, right?"

She couldn't help the tiny laugh that escaped her: the last bit there sounded so hopeful. "I don't see any problem with it. Trunks-kun?" He shook his head, looking a bit torn between the same sorrow and the same amusement she felt. "Sure. It would just be rude otherwise, leaving him out."

Duo-kun snickered and maybe it sounded a little wet, but that was certainly understandable, given the circumstances. "Well, we certainly can't have that: being rude and all."

And then they were in front of their building. There was an odd silence to it: she wasn't sure if it was because they had been talking so long or because she wasn't used to being outside the building. Either way, it was unnerving. Glancing at the two men with her, she was willing to bet they both felt the same way at this moment.

From inside the building, somewhere around their floor even, there was a loud popping sound, followed by a long hiss. She might have compared to air being let out of a balloon, but it was more like air being pulled forcibly _into_ it. Not like an _explosion_ , then… More like whatever the opposite of it was. An implosion maybe?

The whole world seemed to hold completely still for a long, breathless second—

—and then their building seemed to fold in on itself, collapsing inward impossibly towards the third floor on the back side. _The training room_ , her mind provided.

"Heero!" Duo yelled, already running towards the building. Trunks-kun grabbed at his jacket, but he easily slid out of it, barely slowing down. "Heero!"

Faster than she could blink, Trunks-kun set her down. "Stay close, all right?" She nodded, and he took to the air, circling as close to the building as was safe. A wind current, the same that seemed to be dragging the building inwards, pulled at him. Maybe he was already closer than was safe, but that didn't seem to be slowing him down in the least. "Heero-san!"

 _Please let Heero-kun be safe_ , she prayed silently, her eyes slipping closed. Unconsciously, she pulled the Ginzuishou in its brooch from her pocket, wrapping her hands tightly around it. _Please let Heero-kun be all right. Please!_


	33. Text

_Please let Heero-kun be all right. Please!_

It was all she could to keep repeating those words over and over in her mind. She might have even been whispering them aloud. She didn't know. She didn't even really care. As long as Heero-kun was all right.

As long as all of her boys were all right.

It could have been seconds or hours later when Trunks-kun set back down next to her again. Thankfully this time, though, he wasn't alone.

Okay, if Heero-kun ended up dead in the next ten seconds, it was either going to be thanks to her or Duo-kun. He didn't have a scratch on him. The entire building had folded in on itself, and he didn't have a single scratch on him. How was that possible?

Personally, she was torn whether to hug him or slap him. Duo-kun, at least, didn't seem to have any such questions. She didn't even see him approach before he had both arms around Heero-kun from behind.

"If you ever do something like that again, Heero…" was all she managed to overhear. Whatever the threat was, knowing Duo-kun, she was willing to bet it was going to be spectacular. From the look on Heero-kun's face, it might have gone beyond even that.

"What _did_ you do, Heero-san?" Trunks-kun asked quietly.

Heero-kun… Honestly, Heero-kun didn't look so good. There might not have been a single scratch on him, but that didn't mean he couldn't be shook up. After all, a building did just implode around him.

"I'm…" He trailed off, visibly gathering himself, even as he seemed to reluctantly step away from Duo-kun and in turn sink down to sit beside where she still sat. "I'm not entirely sure."

"Best guess?" Duo-kun prompted, kneeling down in front of his partner.

"I was working on the coding, the formulas for using Trunks' time machine to get us all out of here. I entered in one equation, and it was like the world exploded around me."

"More like imploded" came from Duo-kun. Inanely, she was a bit glad that she had guessed the right word for what she had seen. "Nothing was coming _down_. It was all collapsing in on itself."

And, she noted, glancing off to the side where their building had stood, there certainly wasn't a lot left of their former home. There was a crater and what looked like a hole sinking deep into the earth, and that was about it. Obviously, they were going to have to find a new place and soon.

At least there wasn't that much in the building of any value, now that Heero-kun was accounted for: their crank lamp, the rest of the day's food, her old clothes that she had been saving for bandages if needed, Heero-kun's laptop... Okay, no, scratch that last one: it looked like Heero-kun had managed to hold on to that one at least.

And she had just traded part of their food for clothes. Granted, clothes that they had needed, yes, but stuff that probably could have waited another day or two. Perhaps not her brightest move to date. Okay, this called for some small amount of levity.

"So basically, if I'm understanding this correctly…" She trailed off, waiting for Heero-kun's rather distracted focus to be at least somewhat on her. "Basically, you used your laptop to break science?"

Heero-kun blinked a couple of times, clearly trying very hard—and possibly failing just as hard—to follow her logic. "I suppose?" he finally responded, if a little bit hesitantly.

Duo-kun let out a quiet whistle, resettling himself to sit on the ground instead of kneeling. "That's some seriously crazy stuff, Heero."

"I did mention that temporal physics aren't my strong suit."

She smiled softly. "You did, Heero-kun."

"And that was without the actual machine hooked back into the coding," Duo-kun noted almost absentmindedly; she was starting to suspect that a lot of that was a whole layer of… something. The thought had trailed away from her. She knew she didn't think he was lying to him, not _per se_ , but maybe it was a bit like this Ginji person and Raitei? A little?

Still, he had a point. It might have been a terrifying point, but it was indeed a point. If this happened without the time machine hooked back in and receiving the commands contained in the coding, what could have happened if that hadn't been the case? She didn't want to know.

"Is this going to happen with every variation of coding you try?" Trunks-kun asked, his voice dead serious.

Heero-kun shrugged. "I don't know. Perhaps. I managed to back up the text I got done this time, so at least this one won't end up being repeated."

"We're going to have to find you a separate place for you to work on this then."

He glanced around, shifting just slightly as if to brace for something. An attack, maybe? Now that she thought about it, it was unusually quiet out here? Okay, it was often very quiet out here, but there wasn't a single bit of noise in the least. She couldn't even hear the breeze coming through the buildings.

That was not good. She didn't know what it meant—if it could mean Reapers or Carrions—but it definitely was not a good thing.

Thankfully, they had done some poking around a couple of days ago, the same day they had rearranged the lobby as a matter of fact. There were buildings around them that were both abandoned and semi-structurally sound. They weren't as sound as their previous home here had been, but any port in a storm, as the saying went.

"We need to get off the street." Trunks-kun's voice was little more than a whisper, a murmur at best, but it sounded like a shout in the silence. "Something's coming."

"Directly across the street and one building to the left?" she returned at as close to the same volume as she could manage. It was the next closest building to intact; it made the most sense—to her at least—to go there now. Trunks-kun nodded.

Cautiously, she started pushing herself to her feet. A fresh wave of dizziness hit, but with some effort, she forced it back down. Now was not the time for that. Once they were indoors again and safe, then she would take the time to deal with that.

Almost immediately, there was a hand at her elbow steadying her. She looked up, fully expecting to find it attached to Duo-kun. Instead, it was Heero-kun.

Well… this was certainly something she hadn't expected. And hey, it was definitely something she could live with.


	34. Breakdown

The new building had a similar floor plan to their old place, she thought to herself, but it certainly felt different. For starters, they could go no further up than the second floor; after that, the stairs, well, didn't exist. There were four rooms and a common area again, but the walls between the rooms were much less intact. One room was missing about half of the outside wall and nearly the same amount of ceiling, giving a very clear view of the floor above them. They didn't have to even say anything out loud in order to agree that _that_ one wasn't going to be anyone's bedroom; it would be Trunks-kun's training room, if he still wanted to train indoors at any point.

Without any words being exchanged, Heero-kun headed to one bedroom, setting his laptop down far more cautiously than he had before this afternoon's adventure. So obviously that was going to be his and Duo-kun's room. It made sense.

In turn, she headed into the bedroom closest to the stairs. That would be the one Trunks-kun would want, she figured, so she might as well start getting comfortable here. It was going to take some clearing out and cleaning up, but it was at least workable.

The last habitable room bridged the area between the two occupied rooms. It was a lot smaller than either of them. If she had to hazard a guess, she would think that perhaps it had started off life as an office break room or a meeting room perhaps. All of this area was clearly not originally intended of living quarters, and all over again, she found herself wondering about the original inhabitants of this world and what had happened to them: the Reapers, the Carrions, or just time itself.

The whole place just had a desolate feel to it, but maybe that was because they were just coming into it. Maybe once they had been here a day or two that feeling might dissipate some.

"Duo and Trunks are on their way up." Heero-kun's voice came from right behind her.

To her own private surprise, she didn't even jump. Maybe she had been expecting to hear something said from someone soon, but she rather suspected it had more to do with her nerves being stretched a bit beyond their limits for the day—and it was barely midday yet. With some rest and quiet, she would probably be good for another shock or two yet today.

"Good," she finally responded. It wasn't really an answer, but it was the best she was going to manage right now.

"I don't think they met any of the Carrions on their way in. I don't know about Trunks, but there isn't a lot that Duo can do quietly."

Oh, now that she was interested to know a bit more about. "You think?" And yeah, that sounded a bit more like her usual self. "Because that bears possibilities."

"Usagi…" She glanced over at him, and there was that overwhelming look of loneliness and solitude to him again. She frowned; she really didn't like that look on him. "I thought you were with Trunks."

She smiled. "I am, yeah."

"Then why are you…?" He stopped in the middle of his sentence, obviously too frustrated to finish what he had been going to say.

That much was pretty easy to guess, though. "Because Duo-kun asked. Because I can appreciate what I can see of Duo-kun. But I guess mostly, it's because Duo-kun seems so very lonely." She leaned a bit closer, ducking her head slightly to try to meet his eyes under his bangs. "Like you're lonely, Heero-kun."

"No, I'm not." The denial seemed very firm, at least on the surface, but she was willing to bet she could chip away at that certainty very quickly.

"Heero-kun, you are the loneliest person I think I have ever met. I've been able to see that from the first moment I met you. Don't bother denying it please." He shrugged, obviously abandoning denial already. "Why are you so lonely, Heero-kun?" At the silence her question received, she tried a slightly different tactic. "I mean, you've got Duo-kun."

And at that, he stood a step back, shaking his head swiftly. "Duo's not interested in me like that, Usagi. We're just partners. You're trying to twist facts to meet your theory."

She frowned, considering that for a second, before shaking her head. That wasn't it at all. "I think you'll find it's the other way around, Heero-kun."

"I doubt that."

"I don't," she retorted. She could hear Trunks-kun and Duo-kun on the stairs now. With that in mind, she backed off. "Think about it, Heero-kun, please."

He shook his head slightly, taking another step away from her as Duo-kun and Trunks-kun came into view on the stairs.

Fine. If that was the way they were going to do this, then that was the way they were going to do this. Apparently that way… was going to be the hard way.

She could live with that. She certainly hoped Heero-kun could as well.


	35. Depressing

"Heero-kun might be the most infuriatingly stubborn, annoying man on this or any other planet," she hissed under her breath, pacing back and forth across the room, nearly silent on her socked feet. "I have never met anyone anywhere who was so damned determined to be utterly miserable."

On some level, she knew that she shouldn't be letting this get to her so badly. After all, she would prefer to leave the swearing quota up to Duo-kun, since he was a lot better at it than she was. Honestly, though, Heero-kun was frustrating her to no end. She couldn't understand _wanting_ to be sad all the time.

Okay, maybe that was entirely fair. Maybe he didn't _want_ to be depressing. Maybe it was that lonely was what Heero-kun knew; it was a lot easier to stick to what you knew than try for something new.

She could understand that. She could understand all of that. But what she could not understand was why he refused to see what was right in front of his face. Duo-kun was obviously in love with him, and based on that dream of hers, she would almost be willing to gather that Duo-kun had been for quite some time. She was fond of him, as was Trunks-kun, or else neither of them would have agreed that to the possibility of eventually adding him to this… well, to this, whatever it was they were going to call it.

"That might be the first time I think I have ever heard you swear, Usagi-san." Trunks-kun at least sounded amused. That was good. At least somebody here was. Under ordinary circumstances, she might have found it amusing as well. Right now, though, she was fed up.

Actually, no… Now that she thought about it some, it actually was a bit funny. A grin broke across her face, followed quickly by a giggle. "This is what Heero-kun has driven me to: swearing badly." She tried to sound stern, but the laughter might have given away the illusion of that.

"Horrors." The deadpan response brought another round of giggles out of her. "I can't believe you actually confronted him about it."

She shrugged. Now that she was feeling a bit calmer, she sat down from her pacing to settle next to Trunks-kun, sliding easily into his side. She liked that: it was almost like that spot was made for her and her alone. "He's just so lonely, Trunks-kun. I want to fix that."

"You can't fix everything about everyone, Usagi-san."

And that was very sage advice. Too bad she was lousy at following advice. "I can try. It's a simple fix: he just needs to admit that at least Duo-kun likes him."

"Duo-san is mad about him," Trunks-kun corrected gently, and yeah, she could most assuredly concede that point.

"True, but Heero-kun can't seem to see that. He think Duo-kun… puts up with him, that Duo-kun only sees him as a work partner, and that's just willful obliviousness." She snorted in a completely unladylike manner. "I mean… I'm oblivious to a lot of stuff, but I'm not doing it on purpose like Heero-kun is here."

"Sometimes it's easier to just keep being alone, to keep people at bay. That way you don't get hurt." And that sounded like Trunks-kun was speaking from experience. She didn't really see that with him, so maybe someone he knew?

"Maybe so," she conceded the point, "but then you're all alone. No one should have to be all alone." And if she wasn't sitting down—and a little worried that the floor might give out from under her for trying it—she might have even stomped her foot to punctuate her point.

"I don't disagree, Usagi-san, but I don't think this is going to be the way to get to Heero-san. He's not the kind of person to just accept… affection for affection's sake. He needs reasons and rationalizations, and 'because I like you' will not an acceptable answer."

Maybe Trunks-kun had been giving this as much thought as she had. It was something that tended to stick on the mind. "What do you suggest then, Trunks-kun?"

"Let Duo-san be the one to persuade him. Duo-san has known him the longest, after all, and he would be the best qualified to the job."

"It'll be years then," she predicted direly.

But Trunks-kun shook his head slowly, a small smirk building on his face. "I think what you said this afternoon shook him up some. He's going to watching Duo-san more, and I think he's going to start noticing some things that have slipped by him before now." He paused, giving her a second to think that over—and find herself in agreement. "And in the meantime…"

"'In the meantime'?" she repeated when he did not continue.

"In the meantime, I think the two of us should focus on us."

Now that she liked the sound of—and quite a lot at that. Glancing up at him in the near total darkness of the room, she could just barely make out that his cheeks were slightly darker than the rest of his face. God, she hoped he never lost that.

"I can get behind that," she murmured, leaning up to press a light kiss to his lips. Despite that, it quickly deepened, as Trunks-kun tightened his arm around her, pulling her up close against him. She could feel him hard against her, and God, that was something she was never going to get tired of.

She was never going to get tired of Trunks-kun in general: the way he felt against her body, the way he tasted, the way he made her feel. Even if nothing else changed, as long as she still had Trunks-kun, she was going to be happy.

She pushed herself up on her knees, dragging Trunks-kun up too, so she could start working on getting to more of his skin. She kept getting her arms tangled in his as he tried to work her borrowed shirt over her head, and she couldn't hold in the laugh that came. Trunks-kun chuckled briefly and even more so when she finally got his vest off him.

"Just don't throw anything out the window this time, Usagi-san."

The giggles struck again, but this time she found them silence by a kiss. If she was still smiling during it, that was okay. Trunks-kun was too.

"You started without me, I see."

The sudden sound of Duo-kun's voice should have been like a bucket of ice water over the two of them. Instead, she found herself turning in Trunks-kun's lap to offer the other man a smile. "Not by much," she offered.

Duo-kun's eyes twinkled briefly with amusement, before they turned serious as he glanced up at Trunks-kun. "Does the offer still stand, Trunks?"

At that, she too turned to look up at Trunks-kun. Everything here depended entirely on his answer.

After a moment's silence, Trunks-kun nodded.

So that was it: this was really going to happen. Okay. Wow. She had known it was a possibility, but now that it was actually happening, it was a little mind-blowing.

Duo-kun lowered himself to kneel to their side. "Nothing more than everyone here is comfortable with, right?"

She waited until she saw Trunks-kun nod before she did the same.

 _This is really happening,_ she reflected to herself. And that was something she hadn't considered: she had a front row seat to watch Duo-kun carefully draw Trunks-kun into a kiss. _It's really happening, and it's a damn good thing._


	36. Lure

Next time she got an idea in her head like giving people back their powers, she was going to have to insist that someone, though preferably not Trunks-kun, hit her… because obviously it was one of the stupidest ideas she had ever had—and she had had some real braindead ones over the years.

Not only had there been Sylphiel-san a couple of days ago, but people were starting to turn up in their area of the city ever since Sylphiel-san. She didn't know the names of half the people who had turned up, even the ones she had managed to return their abilities to.

Ranma-san and Ryoga-san, both from the same world—meaning that Duo-kun and Heero-kun were not entirely without precedent—were going to stand out in her memory for a while, if not for all the fighting between the two of them, then for Ranma-san's loud relief to be able to fight and not possibly getting turned into a girl in the middle of a fight… or Ryoga-san accidentally turned into a pig… which in turn led to more fighting between the pair again.

Tenchi-san had shown up yesterday as well, much like everyone else hovering around the area of the time machine until she was able to get downstairs to meet him and give him back his Light Hawk Wings... and that she hadn't expected. That Duo-kun was working on the mechanical side of the time machine while Heero-kun worked on the programming side of it inside somewhere… Well, that at least meant that she wasn't outside alone.

Not that she stood a lot of chance of being completely alone right now. It seemed like no matter where she turned, she either had Trunks-kun or Duo-kun right next to her. And yes, there were all the things the three of them had done that first night and last night, but there was also the fact that the two of them were the only ones who currently knew just how draining using the Ginzuishou this much was on her.

Frankly, all she wanted to do was curl up in a bed—an actual bed, with a mattress and sheets and real pillows—and sleep for a week. It wasn't going to happen, of course, not until they got out of this mess and off this insane world. It might not even happen then, depending on where they ended up.

God, she hoped they ended up on a world that had invented beds.

It had been fairly quiet since midday. The afternoon sun had gone behind some clouds an hour or so ago, and she wasn't complaining. Sunbathing was about the furthest thing from her mind. Right now, she just wanted to sit here next to Duo-kun in peace and quiet, with no one disturbing her for a few uninterrupted hours at the very least.

It had been an almost nonstop parade of people stopping here since yesterday morning. She had barely gotten breakfast divided out for the four of them, along with the other daily meals, before Trunks-kun reported hearing someone or some _thing_ moving around in the street. That had turned out to be Ranma-san, and it had been fairly nonstop from there.

If she had to fathom a guess, she would say that at least fifteen people had showed up here yesterday. She clearly remember Ranma-san and Ryoga-san, because of the fighting and the changing into a girl and/or pig, but also because the pair had been the first ones to show up more or less on her doorstep. After that, she remembered Tenchi-san and the woman who had come with him, Kagome-san. She remembered faces for some of the other people she met but not names and vice versa for some of the others.

Today, there had been about six to ten more people: they were all starting to run together. She had seen at least twenty people, and she had even been able to give more than two-thirds of them back their powers in exchange for an agreement to help them fight against the Reapers.

Seriously, just how many people had Sylphiel-san told about what she had managed to do for the older woman? Better still, how had she managed to tell them all so quickly? It wasn't like there were cell phones in this world.

Still, it was warm out here, at least compared to inside. She had found a fairly comfortable place to settle herself while Duo-kun worked on repairing sections of the time machine that had been picked over by the scavengers. Some of the pieces that had disappeared had since returned; she had found a small box full of capsule-like things that she needed to show Trunks-kun at some point and the pilot's seat sitting anonymously next to the side of the machine this morning.

Duo-kun was still wearing the uniform he had shown up in. In deference to the work he was doing, he had taken off the jacket and rolled up his shirt's sleeves; the tie had disappeared with their old building, to Duo-kun's apparent relief. On the other hand, she had changed into the winter clothes she had gotten from Sylphiel-san, was wearing Duo-kun's jacket, and had one of the blankets wrapped around her legs. It made her feel older than she had any right to feel, but at least she was finally a comfortable temperature.

It was entirely possible that Duo-kun was paying more attention to her than he was to fixing the time machine. She hadn't seen anything being seriously worked on in the last few minutes. For all her protests about basically being babysat where the Carrions were concerned, she didn't mind this too much. Maybe that was because it didn't feel like Duo-kun was treating it as a duty.

Besides, Heero-kun had found a building that suited his needs for his coding. Trunks-kun was with him while he worked on what was needed to make the time machine do what it was supposed to be doing.

"Damn," she heard Duo-kun comment under his breath. Well, that was certainly heartfelt.

"What is it?" she asked quietly, though not as softly as he had spoken. She leaned closer to him, trying to see if she could spot what it was that was bothering him.

"Is there any chance you can say no to these guys?" he asked as he nodded towards the northern end of the street.

She followed his gaze. At least it was only two people this time. One group yesterday had been five people, and that had certainly been exhausting. Two was a much more manageable number, if she did end up trying. And who was she kidding? She would end up trying to give them both their powers back; she hadn't _not_ tried yet.

Wait a minute… Yes, there were two of them. They did seem unusually close, the shorter blond all but orbiting around the taller dark-haired man.

It was the dark-haired man that intrigued her. There was something oddly familiar about him, but it wasn't like she had ever met him before.

It was the sunglasses that tipped her off, though. They certainly were as weird as Tenchi-san's description had indicated. Dark spiky hair, tall and lean… This had to be the person that Sylphiel-san had seen being dropped off a little after she and Trunks-kun arrived. Of course, he had landed in the Thunder Emperor's— _no, Raitei_ , she corrected herself—territory.

So did that mean the hyper and entirely too happy blond hovering in orbit around the taller guy was Raitei? She shook her head slightly to clear it because that was seriously a dumb thought. No, this could not Raitei. It would have to be Ginji-san.

"I really don't think I can, Duo-kun," she replied, maybe a little sadly, pushing herself to her feet.

Well, this was certainly going to be interesting.


	37. Astrology

She couldn't help but think over what it was that Midou Ban-san had said, about his powers—his curse, he had called it—and how he was able to do the things he did.

She hadn't been able to give him back everything. Of that, she was very sorry, as she had told him more than a few times, to no apparent reaction. She had managed to hit some of the big ones, he said, by giving him back his Snake Bite and one use of his Jagan a day.

Ginji-san—Ginji-chan, she corrected herself, since he had proven more than willing to take to a very silly nickname—it seemed, had lost his powers when he switched from Raitei back to Ginji-chan. The amount she had give him back was little more than a drop of water in the ocean compared to what he had been able to do, but it was a step in the right direction as far as he was concerned.

Personally, she didn't care if she ever met Raitei, the Thunder Emperor that everyone was so terrified of, but Ginji-chan, now he was fun. She couldn't say if she had ever met anyone like him, both in temperament (he seemed to be so happy all the time) and in his devotion to his own partner, Ban-san. It seemed that Ban-san was from Ginji-san's world… and as far as she knew, this made the first time the Reapers had ever gone back for someone. All she could assume was that they must have been truly terrified of Raitei, to bring someone from Ginji-chan's past here to stop him.

To say the least, though, she was a more than exhausted now. She had been tired before this, but now… The thought of that actual bed with actual pillows was becoming an overwhelming need. It wasn't going to happen any time soon, but she could dream, right?

And speaking of dreaming… Ban-san had said something that just refused to let her go. The more she thought about it, the more it struck something in her as very important. She was tired and hadn't caught all of it, but Ban-san had said something about a 'link to the cosmos'.

 _Cosmos… That might just be the word I've been missing,_ she thought to herself. _Cosmos Eternal Make-Up or Eternal Cosmos Make-Up, I wonder. It could be either one, but the first one sounds a whole lot more likely. It_ feels _more right, if that's even possible. Either way, I have it back again. I have Sailor Moon back again._

Not that she overly wanted to do anything with it right now. Right now, all she wanted to do was collapse and have her boys make her excuses to anyone else who decided to show up.

Unfortunately, she knew herself well enough to know that wouldn't happen. The next person and the next person and the next person who came for their powers… She would do everything in her ability to give them back to those people. It was just who she was.

If anything, that was _her_ curse. She was always going to be driven to help people, even—and maybe especially—the people who didn't want help. She could no more change that than she could change the sky or the sun. She wasn't sure she wanted to change that about herself anyway.

Besides, she had Sailor Moon back now. With that, she could do anything. She could best any odds as long as she was Sailor Moon, and maybe that even meant finding a way to keep her boys.

Right now, that was all she wanted: for them all to survive and all end up in the same world together. The rest could sort itself out later.


	38. Cursed

She couldn't help but think over what it was that Midou Ban-san had said, about his powers—his curse, he had called it—and how he was able to do the things he did.

She hadn't been able to give him back everything. Of that, she was very sorry, as she had told him more than a few times, to no apparent reaction. She had managed to hit some of the big ones, he said, by giving him back his Snake Bite and one use of his Jagan a day.

Ginji-san—Ginji-chan, she corrected herself, since he had proven more than willing to take to a very silly nickname—it seemed, had lost his powers when he switched from Raitei back to Ginji-chan. The amount she had give him back was little more than a drop of water in the ocean compared to what he had been able to do, but it was a step in the right direction as far as he was concerned.

Personally, she didn't care if she ever met Raitei, the Thunder Emperor that everyone was so terrified of, but Ginji-chan, now he was fun. She couldn't say if she had ever met anyone like him, both in temperament (he seemed to be so happy all the time) and in his devotion to his own partner, Ban-san. It seemed that Ban-san was from Ginji-san's world… and as far as she knew, this made the first time the Reapers had ever gone back for someone. All she could assume was that they must have been truly terrified of Raitei, to bring someone from Ginji-chan's past here to stop him.

To say the least, though, she was a more than exhausted now. She had been tired before this, but now… The thought of that actual bed with actual pillows was becoming an overwhelming need. It wasn't going to happen any time soon, but she could dream, right?

And speaking of dreaming… Ban-san had said something that just refused to let her go. The more she thought about it, the more it struck something in her as very important. She was tired and hadn't caught all of it, but Ban-san had said something about a 'link to the cosmos'.

 _Cosmos… That might just be the word I've been missing,_ she thought to herself. _Cosmos Eternal Make-Up or Eternal Cosmos Make-Up, I wonder. It could be either one, but the first one sounds a whole lot more likely. It_ feels _more right, if that's even possible. Either way, I have it back again. I have Sailor Moon back again._

Not that she overly wanted to do anything with it right now. Right now, all she wanted to do was collapse and have her boys make her excuses to anyone else who decided to show up.

Unfortunately, she knew herself well enough to know that wouldn't happen. The next person and the next person and the next person who came for their powers… She would do everything in her ability to give them back to those people. It was just who she was.

If anything, that was _her_ curse. She was always going to be driven to help people, even—and maybe especially—the people who didn't want help. She could no more change that than she could change the sky or the sun. She wasn't sure she wanted to change that about herself anyway.

Besides, she had Sailor Moon back now. With that, she could do anything. She could best any odds as long as she was Sailor Moon, and maybe that even meant finding a way to keep her boys.

Right now, that was all she wanted: for them all to survive and all end up in the same world together. The rest could sort itself out later.


	39. Poison

It had been a fairly quiet night, thankfully. Duo-kun apparently took her at her word about both of them or neither of them; she hadn't been up for anything, so he and Trunks-kun hadn't done anything. Or maybe it was just that they were all exhausted from the various things that they had been up to during the day. Either way, they had all just slept in one another's arms.

For this sort of stuff, she was fairly certain that Heero-kun would be immediately willing to join them. It was the more intimate things that she would imagine he was having issue with. Maybe. Sleeping together was, in a lot of ways, much more intimate than sex, at least as far as she was concerned. After all, sleep meant trusting someone to take care of you when you were at your most vulnerable, trusting them not abuse the faith in them you were showing.

Or something like that. She was never terribly good at putting things like that into words really. She could try and sometimes she could even make people understand what it was she was trying to say, but she wasn't too sure this was going to be one of those times.

 _The sleep certainly helped,_ she mused to herself, letting Duo-kun steer her on still unsteady legs into the main area of their building, _but I'm nowhere near one hundred percent yet. I don't even think trying Sailor Moon today would be a wise idea._

Duo-kun stopped and helped her sit down. It was only after she was seated that she realized he had set her down right next to Heero-kun. Clearly this was Duo-kun's idea of putting two people who were uncomfortable around each other at ease: stick them together until they started liking one another. As a technique, it lacked subtlety, but then that was Duo-kun in a nutshell. He frequently lacked subtlety; it was part of his charm.

Trunks-kun was already there as well. It was no surprise really that he had been the first one up this morning; it was usually between the two of them, and she was certainly not at her best, not enough for getting up early enough to do the dividing out of food. He certainly did still look tired, though, and she had to wonder if he had actually gotten any sleep last night; it didn't look like it. He might have even looked a little pale—no, _ashen_ —but surely that was her own exhaustion coloring her interpretations.

Trunks-kun's divisions were a lot neater than her own, she noted with a bit of a smile. And she certainly hoped that Duo-kun didn't change his mind about breakfast, because that meal was one Trunks-kun had already divided by three people instead of four.

She was almost willing to tell him he could divide it again, so that it was done for two people instead of three. She wasn't sure she was too hungry again today. She really had managed to seriously overdo it yesterday.

Plus there was the weird thing where she had dreamed of ChibiUsa last night; that had her off her game even more than she already was. That was a bit bizarre, to be dreaming of the future daughter she would never have, now of all times. There was something portentous about that dream, but she didn't know what it was.

If she dreamed of ChibiUsa because she was soon to be heading back to her own world and to her old destiny… Then she didn't want it. She didn't want to go back to that now. Surely she was allowed to be selfish this once, right? Hopefully she had not used up her allotment of selfish with her boys, because this—all of this—was something she didn't ever want to give up, even for her own world.

"You have to try to eat something this morning, Usagi-san," Trunks-kun coaxed, speaking quietly beside her. That he was trying to get her to eat before tearing through his own food said a lot about his concern about her not eating. She went back over that thought at time or two, not entirely satisfied it made the most sense possible, but it would have to do.

She offered a tired smile. "I'm just still asleep. Go on. I'll have something in a little bit."

"At least try some of the rice stuff again," Duo-kun added in, dangling one in front of her face. "You like the rice stuff, right, Usagi?"

"They're called _onigiri_ ," she faintly heard Heero-kun put in. And that was probably why Duo-kun insisted on calling them 'the rice stuff': it dragged Heero-kun out of his shell, if only for a moment.

"Thank you, Duo-kun," she commented, accepting it. It was better, she and Trunks-kun had found, to stay on the peripherals of those two when they started even pretending to fight.

Most days, she would just try her best to pop the whole thing in her mouth; if nothing else, being so tired was probably actually helping her manners out some, because instead she just took a sizeable bite from it to chew on instead. She could seriously get used to these _onigiri_ that tasted like the ones from her Tokyo. They must have been leftover from that batch yesterday, because it certainly wasn't like their Reaper-provided food ever tasted nearly this good.

Trunks-kun had dug in the second she accepted her _onigiri_. On another, better day, she might have given some thought to trying to keep up with him. Right now, a small meal was the best she could do. Today was one day she was determined she wasn't going to push herself if at all possible, especially if she was going to have Trunks-kun to herself for the entirety of the day.

A hand swiftly crossed into her line of sight, smacking the _onigiri_ out of her hand before she could take another bite.

For a long second, everyone was frozen, as still as a painting or a photograph. Heero-kun's hand remained outstretched, Duo-kun continued to stare at him in surprise, and she and Trunks-kun were just sort of frozen in their own shock.

The only sound in the silence was the beeping of Heero-kun's laptop. It wasn't the quiet noise of a program reaching some completion point. No, this was more like a small klaxon ringing a warning as loudly as it could, a warning of… something.

"Don't eat any of the rest of it." The words should have been a command. Instead, they almost sounded like a plea—and that was weird enough to keep her still. "It's poisoned. I think it's all poisoned."

She couldn't help it: she looked down at the food in front of them, three meals worth for all of them. She had to say, though, that she was shocked speechless. For once, she literally had absolutely nothing to say at all. You could knock her over with a feather: she was that level of shocked.

Trunks-kun seemed to recover more quickly than she was. "How long do you think it has been?"

Heero-kun shrugged. "It's hard to say. I just got a program set up to detect foreign entities last night. I was going to use it for the Reapers, but…"

But instead it had picked up the fact that the Reapers were apparently not above poisoning them to get them out of the way. Apparently, the time for bringing in new people to steal powers from, in order to overpower people here getting their abilities back, was well over. Apparently, now they had come to the 'just kill them' portion of the experience.

"The two of you eat more than Duo and me," Heero-kun continued. "It had to be intended for you. Perhaps they know you two have your powers back and are trying to rectify the situation."

"We're on their radar," Duo-kun commented direly. Heero-kun nodded his agreement with that particular statement. "That could mean they've been poisoning it ever since the old place went up in smoke." He punched one fist into the other hand. "I'm going to kill them. I'm going to kill every last one of those bastards."

"Not if I beat you to it," Trunks-kun returned in a growl, pushing himself to his feet… only to come immediately back down on one knee, suddenly a lot paler and more covered in sweat than she had ever seen him. Whatever was in the food must have just hit him.

After all, of all four of them, Trunks-kun usually ate the most, polishing off whatever everyone else didn't eat. He was also by far the most active, with his training and the flying. Presumably that might give the poison more of a foothold on him.

"Trunks-kun!" she cried, wrapping both arms around him to steady him. Granted, she was none too steady herself, so it was probably more Heero-kun's and Duo-kun's help that kept the two of them upright than anything she did.

The rather inane thought went through her head that Tenchi-san had promised that the food was safe, had always been safe. It looked like he had been wrong about that after all.

"What do we have in the way of first aid?" Heero-kun asked quietly. She rather suspected she only heard him because his mouth was near her ear from where he was helping hold them both upright.

She sensed more than saw Duo-kun shaking his head slowly. "Nothing here. All our emergency supplies were on the shuttle when we went on colony, remember?"

And that didn't make a lot of sense, but there was an option Duo-kun was forgetting. "Sylphiel-san," she reminded him. "Sylphiel-san said she knows how to do healing. She has to know something for poisons."

"I'll bring her right back," he promised, already shooting to his feet.

"No one needs to go anywhere alone right now," reminded Trunks-kun, his voice surprisingly firm.

"We're not leaving you two here!"

"We'll help you get there," Heero-kun's much calmer voice spoke over Duo-kun's. "She may have things there she needs to work anyway." When he spoke again, his voice was much lower, clearly meant just for her. "Let go of Trunks, Usagi. I'll make sure he gets there okay."

Reluctantly, she nodded, slowly releasing her hold on the other man. Somehow, true to his word, Heero-kun managed to get Trunks-kun to his feet. She could see where Trunks-kun was struggling to help as much as he could, but somehow Heero-kun was strong enough to move Trunks-kun when she couldn't even budge him.

Seconds later, Duo-kun had wrapped both his arms around her and had helped her back to her feet again. The overwhelming vertigo from just that small movement stuck with her most of the way downstairs and even onto the street. She was almost moving under her own power. Almost. Kind of. Her feet were shuffling back and forth, barely leaving the ground unless necessary, so she could sort of pretend that she was actually doing the walking.

Blackness swam in and out of her vision. She wasn't going to let herself pass out, not until she knew they were all okay. Besides, it had to be a lot worse for Trunks-kun.

No, she was with Duo-kun on this: she was going to kill every last one of those bastard Reapers. She didn't care if it wasn't something she would have thought herself capable of even earlier this morning, but right now, she could do it. If she had to, she could do it right now with her bare hands. No one hurt what was hers and got away with it. The Reapers were going to pay for this.

The journey to Sylphiel-san's felt like it took three times as long as it had only a couple of days ago. Her feet seemed to catch on every rock in the road, sending her stumbling every few steps; Duo-kun had caught her every time thus far, but she wasn't too sure how much longer he could keep it up.

Ahead of her and Duo-kun, Heero-kun seemed to be taking on more and more of Trunks-kun's weight with every step that they walked. The further they went, the less she could see Trunks-kun deliberately moving his legs as if he was walking. More and more, it was starting to look like a shuffle.

She wanted to call a timeout; both she and Trunks-kun needed a break. The realistic part of her balked though. As hard as it was for them to keep moving, it would be even harder for them to start again if they stopped. Given that putting one foot in front of the other was one of the hardest things she thought she had ever done, she shuddered to think of trying to start again.

Besides it was only a block or two. Then one. Then a couple more buildings.

At last, then, they were there.

Even though he was right next to her, wrapped more than a bit around her to hold her up, she could barely make out what Duo-kun was yelling up in the direction of Sylphiel-san's place. She faintly heard the other woman answer, and then there were stairs heading up. Thankfully, Sylphiel-san only lived on the second floor, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, she supposed. It wasn't too pleasant as it was.

Sylphiel-san and Duo-kun were talking again, the words indistinct, until she heard one that made no sense at all.

"Dicleary" rang out in Sylphiel-san's voice, loud enough to echo through her head.

She couldn't even begin to describe the weird feeling that chased hard on the heels of that word, and that was only in part thanks to the darkness finally dragging her relentlessly under.


	40. Abyss

If there had ever before been a time that she desperately did _not_ want to wake up, she couldn't remember it. Even if there was a time, surely it hadn't been nearly as hellish as this moment right now.

It felt like literally every muscle, every bone, every blood vessel in her body hurt. It felt there was fire burning inside her in ways that should never, ever be possible. It made her want to sink back down into that black abyss and try to wait the pain out.

But now that she wanted that abyss, it was stubbornly not coming back to her. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out why…

No, wait, yes, she could. Trunks-kun… She had to know if he was all right.

Sounds were already starting to flow back to her, and it wasn't surprising at all that the first thing she heard was Duo-kun's voice. "I swear: the first Reaper I see, I'm punching it right in the face."

The only thing even vaguely surprising there was that the murmur of voices that came after his pronouncement didn't seem to be Heero-kun or Sylphiel-san. She did remember the two of them being the only ones in the room when she passed out, aside from her and Trunks-kun.

Wrestling her eyes open was harder than it should have been, but somehow she managed to succeed at that. She didn't recognize where she was, but honestly that didn't mean much of anything. In the last week, she had had varying degrees of that same feeling every morning.

The whole room was a level of neat and tidy that definitely said it wasn't the place she shared with Trunks-kun, Duo-kun, and Heero-kun. In fact, if it spoke of anyone she knew, it would be Sylphiel-san. So she hadn't dreamed the part where they had made it to the older woman's home. That was good. If anyone could take care of them right now, it would be Sylphiel-san.

Glancing off to her right, she could see a closed door separating this room from where other people were clearly still talking. To her left…

"Welcome back." Heero-kun looked pretty rough and sounded even worse than he felt. If she had to venture a guess, she would say he looked ragged. "We were really starting to worry about you, Usagi."

She offered a tired smile of reassurance, the best she could summon up at the moment. "How long have been I been out for, Heero-kun?"

"The better part of a day."

 _Is that all?_ she thought inanely to herself. _It felt like so very much longer. Days at least, if not weeks._

"Trunks-kun?"

He let out a quiet sigh, and she felt her stomach drop in record time, a tight fist squeezing around her heart. Had… Had they been too late getting here?

The sigh turned into a yawn. And wow, she felt a little dumb and panicky right now. "Trunks woke up once a few hours ago then again maybe twenty or thirty minutes ago. It's kind of crazy, but it looks like he's almost completely better already."

"Saiyajin heal fast," she repeated, mostly to herself. Trunks-kun had mentioned that to her once. "That's… That's good." And it was weird, but she was already fighting to keep her eyes open again.

This time it felt… better. Perhaps 'more natural' was more accurate. She wasn't going under because the Reapers had seen fit to try to poison her and Trunks-kun. Instead it was more like she was just going to rest, to try to sleep away the remaining exhaustion and any remaining hints of the poison.

"Usagi." Heero-kun's voice dragged her back awake again, and she blinked back open eyes that she couldn't remember ever closing.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you can stay awake long enough for Duo and Trunks to see you okay?" He sighed. She almost got the feeling—no, scratch that, because she was most _definitely_ getting the feeling—that he was copying Duo-kun. "Trunks has been hovering ever since he woke up. Duo dragged him to the meeting out there before he lost his mind."

"Meeting?" This was news to her. She certainly hadn't heard of any meetings. They were having meetings now?

"Apparently Sylphiel's spell made some waves or something. People started showing up not too long after she finished it. Duo says most of them were people you managed to help." Wow… Now that was a pleasing turn of events. She had begged them all to fight on their side against the Reapers, but she hadn't counted on this kind of support. "Apparently, they're getting ready to take the fight to the Reapers sooner than we had anticipated. It seems we've sparked a revolution here."

"That's a good thing, right?" And she was getting sleepy again already. If she hadn't heard that Trunks-kun had fallen back asleep after the first time he woke up, she would have accused herself of being weak. "We wanted them fighting with us, didn't we?"

He nodded. "We did. We do. I'm not sure that the machine is ready. Or well, the machine is ready—Duo finished the electrical work on it the day before yesterday—but I'm not so sure on my coding."

And that didn't sound like Heero-kun. This whole thing must have thrown him for a real loop. "It'll work." She tried to push herself to a more upright position and failed. Wordlessly, Heero-kun moved her to be sitting up. "And if it doesn't, maybe the Ginzuishou…"

"I don't want to think of you using that thing again so soon." And that had come out with surprisingly vehemence for Heero-kun. "Duo and Trunks mentioned in some detail how much using it drains you. Don't you dare even think about using it, Usagi."

She blinked once then again. It was on the tip of her tongue to argue the point, but looking at the determination in Heero-kun's eyes, if she tried this battle, then it would be one that she would lose. Still, though… "If it comes down to life or death?"

He sighed. "Use it then. But only then. You've created a small army already, Usagi. To a man, they're loyal to you for giving them back what the Reapers took. I don't think you need much more than that."

Maybe not. She would have preferred to try a few more times. Maybe see if she couldn't give powers back to the people she hadn't been able to before. But even she had to admit that she wasn't in the best of shapes at the moment—far from it, in fact—and pushing herself too much right now could end up being a very bad thing.

While it wouldn't be the first time using the Ginzuishou had killed her—that time with Fiore and the flower asteroid came to mind for some reason—she didn't think any of her boys was ready for that. And frankly, she wasn't ready to lose her boys to anything, let alone something as permanent as death could be.

"Can I see Trunks-kun and Duo-kun now?" she asked, more than a hint of whine in her voice. She was tired, beyond ready to go to sleep, and she still needed to know they were all okay. She definitely believed Heero-kun when he said they were, but knowing it and _knowing it_ were two different things. It turned out her heart was a lot less likely to take things on someone else's word than her mind was. "I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to manage to stay awake."

Heero-kun eyed her a second or so longer then nodded. He looked as weary as she felt as he pushed himself to his feet, treading on silent feet over to the door. She could hear a faint whispered conversation as he opened it a slit.

Not much after that, the door flew open wide, and Duo-kun rushed in, dropping to his knees and wrapping both arms around her before the door could even finish banging against the wall. Past him, she could see Trunks-kun coming in as well. Beyond Trunks-kun, there were quite a number of assembled people. She could see Tenchi-san, Ranma-san, Ryoga-san, Ginji-chan, and what might have been the back of Ban-san's hair.

That was all she had time to see before Trunks-kun pushed the door closed behind himself. "Welcome back, Usagi-san," he commented quietly.

"Thanks," she returned around Duo-kun's near chokehold. She wrapped shaky arms around the longhaired man, giving him a light squeeze before holding a hand out to Trunks.

By the time Trunks-kun had crossed the room to drop down next to the two of them, to her surprise, Heero-kun had also sat back down beside her, his solid presence warm against her back, keeping her steady when that didn't seem too likely at all. That was a pleasing thought, thinking of Heero-kun having her back.

She didn't even think of stopping first Trunks-kun then Duo-kun from swooping in to steal a kiss from her. They had all almost lost each other. In a way, this was very much about reassurance: that she was back, that she and Trunks-kun were okay, that no one had lost anyone else today.

With Heero-kun right here, however, maybe she should have thought of stopping this before it got too far. But he didn't seem bothered in the least.

In fact, he leaned just past her to press a brief kiss to her other two boys: on the cheek for Trunks-kun and chastely on the mouth for Duo-kun. There was a brief hesitation on his part before he offered her a kiss on her cheek as well.

 _So this is all of us then,_ came the inane thought, completely apropos to nothing. _This is all four of us together. I like it. Too bad it took me and Trunks-kun nearly dying for it to happen, but still, it's good. It's really, really good._

She heard the door open and close once, and reluctantly she lifted her head from Duo-kun's shoulder to see who was in here.

Meeting Sylphiel-san's eyes when she was sitting here like she was should have been harder than it was. It should have been hard at all, but instead it was one of the easiest things she had ever done. This was her relationship, as unconventional as it was, and she was not ashamed of it. She refused to be ashamed of it.

Sylphiel-san's only reaction really, however, was to raise one eyebrow slightly, a silent question that Usagi was not going to answer. Some things weren't other people's business, after all. If Minako-chan was here, then maybe she would talk to her about this, but in the absence of her best girl friend, she would just hold this wonderful revelation in.

That single eyebrow still raised, Sylphiel-san dropped down to a knee beside them. Quickly and quietly, she took Usagi's pulse and gave her a quick check over. "You look like you're feeling a lot better, Usagi-san," she commented quietly. "I got the poisons out of you and Trunks-san—and to a lesser extent, Heero-san and Duo-san—but I want the two of you to take it easy the rest of the day."

She nodded her agreement. Taking it easy would not be difficult today. Staying awake was proving to be a good deal more difficult. "So we're all okay then?" she had to ask.

"Barely. It was this close for you and Trunks-san," she commented, holding two fingers a bare smidgen apart. "If you guys hadn't gotten here when you did, I'm not sure I could have saved you." She pushed herself to her feet, quickly heading back over to the door, where she hesitated. "I want all four of you to stay the rest of the day—at least—here. There's no need for you to try to get all the way home when most of you were clearly exhausted as it is."

She got pretty good sense that it wasn't 'most of them' in this case. No, she rather had the feeling that it was an 'all of them' situation. Heero-kun had looked exhausted when he got up to get the door earlier, and Duo-kun didn't look any better to say the least. After all, they had both also been poisoned, though thankfully it had managed to stay in lesser quantities in the two of them.

"We'll stay," Heero-kun declared, a bald pronouncement of intentions. This time she was certainly in agreement with that statement, though. They were all too tired to do enough moving to get back to their place. Maybe once they had all got some rest, but she definitely didn't want to think of moving right now.

"Good," the older woman returned. "People have said they'll be dropping off what they can spare food-wise until we're all out of here, so you don't need to worry about that. Just, all of you, get some rest. Anything else there is do deal with, we can all deal with in the morning."

As quietly as she had come in, Sylphiel-san in turn slipped out. Also without a word, Heero-kun and Trunks-kun helped her and Duo-kun maneuver back to laying down, all without them dropping the four-way embrace they were wrapped up in.

Feeling as safe and secure as she had felt since she came to be in this weird world, she fell back asleep.


	41. Variety

It turned out that Sylphiel-san was a bit of a mother hen: even after Usagi was awake and somewhat functional again, albeit a bit shaky still, she had refused to let them leave until all of them had eaten. For their part, she and Trunks-kun had put up small protests, but it seemed every bit of the food had been donated as well as vetted; Heero-kun had even used his brand new program on his laptop, the one that had found the poison in the first place, to check all of it, and it came up clean.

She never thought she would see the day when she would become leery of food. After all, it was one of her oldest and best friends in a way. Funny, though, the way an attempted poisoning could change that. At the very least, she didn't want to see an _onigiri_ ever again in her life. The thought of it alone was enough to make her want to start shuddering.

Thankfully, however, Sylphiel-san was both insistent and persuasive, plus all the extra proof that the food was all right was reassuring. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too much longer before they all launched this assault on the Reapers; otherwise, they were going to have to get creative, food-wise, for the length of time they remained here.

By then, it had nearly been dark, and Sylphiel-san had tried to insist they stay the night. They had been able to persuade her otherwise, though, thank goodness, and had come back home just as what little light there was finally disappeared.

Without saying a word, all four of them headed towards the room she usually thought of hers and Trunks-kun's; slowly she was starting to think of it as theirs and Duo-kun's as well.

Beyond some mild fantasies, she hadn't really given too much thought as to just how this was going to work, the mechanics of it and such. Maybe she should have.

That didn't seem to matter in the least to Duo-kun, though: he leaned quickly forward into Heero-kun, pulling him into a searing kiss. She had been on the receiving end of some of those from the longhaired man; she could totally understand the slightly shellshocked and overwhelmed look on Heero-kun's face.

She didn't bother thinking about it, and instead, she reached over and ran a calming hand over Heero-kun's shoulder. Almost immediately, he seemed to relax, leaning into Duo-kun's kiss. That in mind, she deliberately left her hand where it was. It seemed to be helping.

 _That's good,_ she thought to herself. _That's very good. That's everything Duo-kun ever wanted right there._

And personally, she had everything she ever wanted right here. She might have Duo-kun and Heero-kun, in a way at least, but she did most assuredly have Trunks-kun and she didn't plan on ever giving him up.

 _Not for all the worlds am I going to give him up now that I've found him_ , she reflected as he drew her closer for a kiss more sweet than passionate. _I will fight hell itself to keep this._

 _I am not losing this. I_ will not _lose this._


	42. Anticipation

"Ban was saying that the element of surprise is our only major advantage at this point. I have to say I agree," Duo-kun commented. "We can't put this fight off too long."

Trunks-kun nodded his agreement. "The longer we wait, the longer the Reapers have to try again to kill us." He gave her hand a quick squeeze to temper the worlds, but she still had to fight back a shudder. Sylphiel-san had made it sound like a close thing for her and Trunks-kun, even with the older woman's magic wiping out all the poison in the four of them, and she couldn't help still being a bit shaken by that whole incident. It was almost a relief when Trunks-kun continued with "We have to take the fight to them before it comes to that."

Normally at this time of the morning, the three of them that ate breakfast would be doing just that. Not so much this morning, though. Food had arrived again, but it had set off the detector in Heero-kun's laptop just like the offerings that nearly killed them had. Clearly, the Reapers were big believers in 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again' because they were practicing it with extreme prejudice.

Instead the four of them were sitting in the room between the room that was nominally hers and Trunks-kun's and the room that was in name Duo-kun's and Heero-kun's. She had thought of it before as a former office break room or small meeting room, and that description was probably the most accurate for all she could tell.

It made a good place for the four of them to relax, though, since the common area was a bit more exposed than any of them wanted to consider right now. That _was_ where the food was always dropped off, after all; clearly, it was a favored place by the Reapers, the same Reapers who apparently wanted her and Trunks-kun dead.

The four of them were sitting close, a lot closer than all of them had done before. Well, after last night, they were a lot knowledgeable of the intimate details of one another than they had been before. She had dragged of one of Sylphiel-san's large blankets in here, and all of them were cuddled beneath it. Duo-kun had called it a cuddle puddle; Heero-kun had smacked him for it; and as embarrassing as the term might have possibly been, it was pretty accurate.

She knew she was leaning against Trunks-kun, and she was pretty sure it was Heero-kun's legs that were beneath hers and Duo-kun's hands that were wrapped around one section of her hair. It could have been the other way around, though, and really, she didn't care. She didn't overly care which limbs belonged to whom.

"I'm not arguing," she commented. "I just wanted to know if you think we're all ready for this."

Were they ready to take a fight to monsters like the Reapers? Did they have any idea what they were getting into? Did they know whether or not the Carrions would get involved, and if so, on which side? There were a lot of unanswered questions that she didn't feel comfortable leaving that way before going into this fight.

Heero-kun glanced up, barely meeting her eyes before looking back down. "The time machine is ready to go. It just needs a power source." He frowned for a brief second before his face quickly eased back into a neutral expression. "I _think_ I have the coding correctly."

She leaned over to kiss him briefly. "I'm sure it's right. Like I said, we'll get it figured out somehow."

"Without the Ginzuishou, unless it's absolutely necessary." He repeated the terms of their agreement, as if she could have forgotten.

"I'll second that one" came from Duo-kun. Trunks-kun didn't say anything, but he didn't have to; the expression on his face told entire volumes of stories about how much he agreed with that. She could have sighed, if she hadn't swallowed the urge to. "That thing is hell on you, Usagi. Don't use it anymore than you absolutely have to. Please?"

She wasn't any good resisting anything, any plea, like that. "I'll do my best. If I have to use it, though, I will."

"Do you think you'll be able to transform?" came from Trunks-kun. He was the one she had talked the most about Sailor Moon with, so perhaps it was unsurprising that _that_ question came from him.

"I think so. I haven't tried it yet, though." She didn't want to say that, one, she had been too busy with the poisoning and giving powers back and all to try her own abilities again yet, and two, she was a little afraid to try for fear that she might be wrong and fail. It was an abrupt change of subject, but she continued, "Has anyone talked to Ginji-chan about powering the time machine?"

At least they seemed to be willing to go along with her rather pitiful attempt to save face. "He's willing to give it a go," Duo-kun commented. "He's not too sure how well it'll work, but he will give it a try, for what it's worth."

"Here's hoping," she returned.

Heero-kun snorted rudely. "He's probably the only power source here capable of jumpstarting the time machine, so my programs will work. _If_ they work," he qualified. "I'm not completely positive that they will. I'm sorry, but I'm not the genius that Trunks' mother obviously is."

"At least not for temporal physics," Trunks-kun qualified, and she would have grinned if she didn't think it would embarrass both Heero-kun and Trunks-kun. "My mother always said that time machines should be impossible by the laws of physics, but she managed to break some to send me back to the past." He shook his head and then made his own obvious jump in topics. "I think we're as ready as we're going to be for this fight. It'll have to be soon, though. We can't afford to put it off for too long."

Heero-kun nodded slightly. "Every moment we put it off is a moment they gain an advantage we can't afford to hand over to them. They already have us at a huge disadvantage."

"Tomorrow or the day after?" She couldn't think if she had ever heard Duo-kun sound so serious. If this situation didn't call for seriousness, though, she didn't know of one that did.

Trunks in turn nodded his affirmation. "No later than that. We'll be ready for them when the time comes."

And she had no doubt it was coming—and soon at that. It wasn't that far a jump from attempted assassination to war, after all. She could anticipate that it was coming and coming soon. She'd bet money on it.


	43. Descent

The plan had been made while Usagi was unconscious for everyone to meet at Sylphiel-san's place. It wasn't so much because it was somewhat centrally located as because everyone knew where it was.

Apparently this little city extended further than she had realized. She'd known that the place she shared with her boys was on the southernmost edge of the city before it descended into Carrion territory. Raitei had controlled the northernmost portions of the city, and as long as Ginji-chan didn't really _say_ anything, people would keep thinking Raitei was around terrorizing the populace in general and the Reapers and Carrions specifically.

But there were entire swaths of the city to the east and west that she hadn't even thought about and was apparently where a lot of the people she had met in the last few days resided. At the time, she had just been too exhausted during her initial meeting with most of them to give too much thought to where they might all have been coming from.

Right now, she was more concerned how they were going to fit everyone in here. By all indications, there were still at least another twenty or so people who had yet to arrive, and they were already at standing room only.

Well, most of them. Sylphiel-san had quickly laid claim to her chair and all but pushed Usagi and Trunks-kun to sit on the sofa; Duo-kun and Heero-kun had quickly claimed seats on its arms. If nothing else, they at least presented a united front, if it happened to come to that. Hopefully it wouldn't, but they were prepared in case.

It felt so weird to be taking such precautions against people who were going to be their allies very shortly, but it felt… Well, honestly, it felt like it was a necessary precaution. She didn't feel any sense of trustworthiness from any of them, save a select and very limited few. She knew she could trust her boys, but she also felt fairly safe trusting Sylphiel-san, Ban-san, and Ginji-chan.

The rest of them? There was an… uncomfortable feeling that came off of them, like they had all been here too long. The stench of this place had rubbed off on all of them. They could all be great people for all she knew, but she couldn't shake the feeling. She had never claimed to be psychic before this; she had left that sort of thing to Rei-chan and, to a lesser extent, Michiru-san; but she was going to go with that feeling. It had served her fairly well thus far.

At this point, she was just trying to spot someone she recognized, even just his or her face. There was Tenchi-san with Kagome-san, and apparently the two of them were a thing, because she hadn't seen them apart yet. She did see Ranma-san and Ryoga-san near the door leading to the stairs; she was going to just be quietly amused that every so often Ryoga-san started to wander off, and Ranma-san just grabbed the back of his shirt to drag the other man back to standing next to him.

Ban-san and Ginji-chan were on the far side of the room. She got the distinct feeling that Ban-san was measuring up every single person in the room for whether or not he could take them in a fight. She had a weird feeling that he probably could take most of them with the exception of Trunks-kun; she was just going to go with that feeling. No sense putting too much thought into it anyway. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

Another group pushed their way into the already overcrowded room. More than a few people had to shift to accommodate the newcomers. This was really getting out of hand.

This whole thing needed to get started or come to order or something before it turned into a free for all fight. Well, if no one else was going to do it…

She pushed herself to her feet—and then stopped and cursed completely to herself for being so damn short… and apparently Duo-kun's language was rubbing off on her. As if he could sense what she was thinking, Trunks-kun smirked.

Fine. She could deal with this. It wasn't a big deal.

She climbed up to stand on the seat of the sofa. It wasn't much added to her rather unimpressive height, but it was still something.

By this point, everyone in the room was staring at her… and that wasn't intimidating at all, mind the sarcasm. Trunks-kun squeezed her hand briefly in reassurance. From far across the room, Ginji-chan grinned broadly and waved.

She could do this. It was just a matter of opening her mouth and starting to talk. God knew she had no trouble with that in general.

"Thank you all for coming here, everyone," she began, pitching her voice loud so that hopefully it would carry throughout the crowd. "I think I've met a lot of you, but if I haven't, my name is Usagi. We're here today because it's time we take the fight to the Reapers. It's time we get out of this crazy world."

"It has been tried before," a voice she didn't recognize commented from the back. She couldn't actually see the face that went with it for all the other people, but if it matched the voice, it would be older. "Everyone who tried back then died horribly at the Reapers' hands and were fed to the Carrions."

Well, that was certainly more than Tenchi-san had told her… and distinctly gross for that matter. "Be that as it may, we still need to get off this world. These two," she gestured to Duo-kun and Heero-kun, "are from a world the Reapers seem to be moving to. Do you want to risk being left behind here with the Carrions—and no food being brought in?"

"Besides," someone else spoke up, and she thought maybe it was Ranma-san, "she's given a lot of us back some of our powers. That goes a long ways towards evening up the odds. I don't want to end up rotting here or getting eaten by any damn Carrion."

"Even if we die trying, it's better than not trying at all." To her surprise, that one came from Heero-kun, loud enough to carry throughout the room.

"We have a way to get everyone off this world at least," she continued after shooting Heero-kun a grateful smile. "We can't send everyone back to their own worlds, but we can get away from this dead world and to one where we can live."

"Some of us have lived on this world longer than we did our own worlds." There was that first voice again. At least this time, he didn't sound nearly as querulous. "I know I don't remember what my original world looked like. Why would I want to go back there?"

To her surprise, there was a murmur of agreement to that statement.

Another new voice jumped in, this time belonging to a young woman around Usagi's age with light brown hair. "Can you give the rest of us back our powers as well?"

"God, I wish I could. Doing as much as I have nearly did me in, though," she admitted. Honesty was going to be the way to go here, and she did wish she could more to help every single person in this room. But she had made promises to the most important people in her life, and she wasn't about to break it.

"Any more might well kill her" came from Sylphiel-san. She wasn't speaking any louder than she normally did, but it seemed to carry through the room anyway. And that was a bit more than even she had known. She had no reason to doubt Sylphiel-san or think the older woman had simply said that to get her off the hook; no, she felt like if Sylphiel-san had said it then she meant it.

"I think about half the people in the room have their powers back. That will be enough to take the fight to the Reapers."

"How many Reapers are we talking?" That had been Tenchi-san's voice. She felt fairly certainly she could expect him to come down on her side of things when it came to it, but she wasn't going to place bets on that. "I know I've never seen more than one or two at a time."

"We saw about twenty," Duo-kun commented. "There certainly weren't anymore than thirty."

"Twenty or thirty Reapers?" And it was back to the old man's voice, and he sounded utterly incredulous. "Against what? Fifteen of us with powers?"

"More than that," she returned. The rest was true, though, so she didn't bother denying it. "It's not like we have a lot of choice at this point. Either we take the fight to the Reapers while they aren't expecting it, or else we wait for them to come take us out. If we fight them all now together, we honestly stand a better chance of making it out of this alive."

A quiet murmur went through the room again. It certainly didn't sound like a particularly good one, like she was losing her crowd. She had to… do something.

"I don't know about all of you idiots, but I want to make it out of this alive." And that was Ban-san, who sounded beyond disgusted with the room at large. "We stand the best chance this way. I'm fighting. The rest of you are welcome to do whatever you want." He nodded over at where Usagi still stood on the sofa. "I'm with you, Usagi."

"Same here!" immediately came from Ginji-chan, and that was quite a relief. People seemed to look at him, make the connection to Raitei, and slowly start nodding.

"So what's your plan?" And it was back to the old man. She was going to have to find out who he was. Whoever he was, people certainly listened to him. She was going to need that.

"Trunks-kun?" That was his part of the plan; he was going to be the best one to discuss it.

He climbed to his feet, slowly taking stock of the room. She wished she knew what it was he was seeing in the crowd assembled around them, because he nodded rather decisively before he started to speak. "Usagi-san mentioned that we have a way off this world: the machine I landed in. Heero-san and Duo-san here fixed it so that it will take us all to a new world. The minute we cut it on, though, we figure the Reapers will show up. We'll need to buy enough time to power up the machine and start the process of going to another world. It'll take time; how long, though, we don't know. The Reapers are going to be on us hard and fast, and that's our chance. They aren't going to be expecting us to fight back. They aren't going to be expecting _all of us_ to fight back."

" _That's_ your plan?" Okay, seriously, she was going to have to find out more about this old man.

Before Trunks-kun could add anything in response, she cut back into the conversation. "It's what we can do without knowing what powers everyone has. Of course, we would welcome additional feedback after the meeting…" She trailed off, deliberately leaving it open for him.

"Kuwabara Kazuma."

"Kuwabara-san," she repeated, nodding slightly as she committed the name to memory. "But really, it's not like we have a lot of choices on what we do now. We have to get out of here before we get left behind by the Reapers for the Carrions to pick off."

"We're cutting the machine on tomorrow," Trunks-kun stated, "just after sunup. If you're with us, please, be there."


	44. Hell

Morning had come too soon.

Her mind kept repeating that over and over. It was too soon. They weren't ready.

They were going to have to be ready. _She_ was going to have to be ready.

Quite the crowd had gathered already. She had spotted more than a few people she recognized before she had deliberately made herself quit looking. She was nervous enough as it was without trying to figure out who was here to see any screw-ups that might happen.

From the people who had been at the meeting at Sylphiel-san's place, she figured almost everyone was here. Some people were still showing up, so it was entirely possible that they might have everyone here in the very near future.

She hadn't managed to give half of these people their powers back, and yet they were all still here to help out as they could. Because it had to be done or because she had asked, she didn't know. She didn't want to put thought into motivations, when she should just be glad that they were there.

"Heero-san and Duo-san are finishing up the last minute stuff on the time machine," Trunks-kun's voice cut through her rather panicked thoughts. "We'll be ready to switch it on in just a few minutes, if you're ready, Ginji-san."

"As I'll ever be."

"I'm going to get our troops set up then." Trunks-kun offered her a reassuring smile and waded into the crowd.

"Usagi." Heero-kun's voice drew her over to where he sat next to the time machine, doing… something on the laptop. Clearly wherever the Ginzuishou had pulled that device from, it had found one that didn't need to be recharged because it had been several days since it had appeared and it hadn't given up yet, she thought inanely.

"Yeah?" She knelt down next to him, the better to give him her fullest attention. "What is it, Heero-kun?"

"I'm going to be monitoring the machine. I've given Duo my gun and he has his as well. I'm assuming he'll be covering us from the Reapers when the time comes. But… do you need to stick close as well so he can cover you?"

That was sweet, but she shook her head. "I'll be fine. I'm planning on joining the fight once the machine is up and running. Just tell me when you're about to switch it on."

Heero-kun looked like he wanted to argue, but he quickly reined it back in. "All right." He certainly didn't sound happy, that was for certain.

She leaned across the short distance to drop a kiss that was hopefully reassuring on his lips. "Be careful, Heero-kun?" He nodded. "Duo-kun might shoot us all if something happens to you."

"Keep in mind that Trunks might do the same or worse if anything happens to you."

She smiled, brushed her lips across his once more, and pushed herself back to her feet. Just as soon as Trunks-kun declared the troops were ready, then it would be time for Ginji-chan to power up the time machine and Heero-kun to switch it on. If she understood correctly, once the machine was powered on, Heero-kun would have to upload the command he had created to the machine and it would hopefully bring them all over to the new world.

There were a lot of 'if's and 'maybe's and 'hopefully's to this plan, but there wasn't a lot to do about now. Even Kuwabara-san hadn't had any holes to pick in the plan, and she certainly wasn't going to try to play spot the faults now.

Still… For good luck, she reached over Heero-kun's head and touched where 'Hope!' had been spray painted on one of the engines, like a touchstone. Maybe it would even help.

It was easy to spot Trunks-kun; even in this crowd, his purple hair most assuredly stood out. He looked… He looked as serious as she had ever seen him. Once she caught his eye, though, the expression eased somewhat. He finished whatever it was he was saying to Ryoga-san and Ranma-san, and he sent her a silent nod. He was ready.

"Trunks-kun's ready, Heero-kun, Ginji-chan. Let's do this."

"All right…" Ginji-chan sounded like maybe he was psyching himself up for this.

Almost immediately, the smell of ozone began to fill the air. She could swear she could see small flecks of static electricity flick across the air in front of Ginji-chan, but he was paying it no mind, instead working on steadily building his power before reaching out to touch the machine.

She could see Ban-san—well, if it was anyone else, she might have called it hovering, but she found it hard to apply that term to Ban-san. It just didn't feel right. So Ginji-chan at least had someone watching his back while this was going on. In turn, that brought the worry of where Duo-kun had disappeared to.

The fear was alleviated seconds later when Duo-kun stood up from the far side of the machine, maybe finishing up making some last minute adjustments. She still had yet to locate Duo-kun's gun, but Heero-kun's was stuck in the waistband of Duo-kun's uniform pants.

Having seen it from the other end before, she had no wish to know anything else about it. The guns were Duo-kun's and Heero-kun's weapon of choice, and she could respect that, even if her own method of fighting was quite a bit different.

The machine was nearly silent in its recharging; only because she was standing so close to it was why she could hear it humming. A few seconds later, she could see lights starting to come on inside.

It took a few moments, but finally she heard Ginji-chan quietly comment, "It's ready," even as he stepped away from the machine, stepping back into Ban-san.

She didn't even have to say anything; she could see Trunks-kun moving to the front of the crowd and dropping down into a ready crouch. Duo-kun dropped quickly to a crouch as well, but it was to retrieve that second gun, apparently holstered at his ankle.

Automatically, her hand went to her pants pocket, where her brooch still sat with the Ginzuishou within it. It was time. She could do this.

Before she could even get the few words out that she needed, there was a loud sound of displaced air as Reapers began to appear overhead. One, two, six, ten…

She made herself stop counting then. Nothing good could come of continuing to count their enemies. In fact, if she kept counting, she was likely to get too intimidated to fight them… and that was the very last thing any of them needed.

Trunks-kun leapt into the air, meeting the Reapers in their own turf. That white aura surrounded him—his _ki_ , she quickly corrected herself—seeming to lift him into the sky.

The first punch he threw seemed to go right through the Reapers, and she felt her breath catch in her throat sharply enough to hurt. The entire world seemed to hold its breath in the space between that first punch and the second one, scarcely daring to hope that _this_ time, the attack would be successful.

It was.

The Reaper flew back several feet before it stopped itself. If it had eyes, she might have been able to gauge if it was surprised or anger or what, but when it was just a robe and a scythe, she couldn't really tell anything. She imagined it felt affronted, given how quickly it flew back at Trunks-kun, trying to press any advantages it might have had.

If it had any, though, she wasn't seeing them. Trunks-kun seemed to be easily holding his own where he was. All of her little army seemed to be doing quite well on their own.

It was time then, she supposed, for Sailor Moon to join the battle.

She flicked the brooch open and called out, "Cosmos Eternal! Make-up!"

And the light overwhelmed her.


	45. Mystical

She couldn't remember there ever being a transformation like this. Not even her first one, not transforming into Princess Serenity or Neo Queen Serenity, not transforming into Super Sailor Moon or Eternal Sailor Moon the first times. None of them had felt like this one did.

She could feel everyone in her little ragtag army. More than that, she could _see_ the connections to where they had come from before they all arrived on this crazy world, tracing them back like following a thread connecting two points. She could _see_ the corruption this world had left on them, something she had only been able to sense until now.

More than that, she could see how it _wasn't_ on her, or Trunks-kun, or Duo-kun, or Heero-kun, or Ban-san. If it had ever been on Ginji-chan, it had left with Raitei, another thing she was going to be glad for. She wasn't ready to _see_ Raitei. It was thin on Sylphiel-san and almost appeared to be fading. She wasn't complaining.

But it was blindingly thick on other people, and she found herself wanting to erase it, to just wipe it away to see what they actually looked like without that miasma clinging to them like lichen.

She could see so many things that could happen, so many possibilities, like she was seeing what the Ginzuishou picked up all the time. And maybe she was. It felt like the holy jewel of the White Moon Kingdom was floating into her, diffusing itself throughout her body, imbuing her with all its strength and power, making them two of them into one single being.

Whatever this transformation was, it was likely to be her last. Either she would never be able to come out of the transformation or she would never be able to make the change again; it was impossible without the Ginzuishou.

Given the power flowing through her at the moment, she was more than willing to believe she would stay this version of Sailor Moon the rest of her life.

No. She wasn't becoming Sailor _Moon_ , not this time. The power was too far beyond that. It stretched out, accompanying more and more.

Like Ban-san said, the cosmos…

She was Sailor Cosmos now and for good.

It took less than a split second for all of that to rush through her head. In the next second, she felt the clothes she had gotten from Sylphiel-san fade away, only to replaced with a new _fuku_ : a white dress, almost of a similar style to a sundress with rolled gold cap sleeves, no longer than her _fuku_ as Eternal Sailor Moon. In the front, there was a small decorative flap, emblazoned in her former Senshi's colors, with two white ribbons trailing down nearly to her feet. A white cape extended from beneath the sailor collar to the ground, and she wore a pair of high white heels.

Feathers seemed to protrude from every possible place for them to: from the sleeves, on the back of her shoes, in her hair. Also her moon seemed to be replaced with a six-pointed star, an image that repeated on a disc over her chest and another disc just above the flap on the front of her short skirt, as well as a smaller one on a choker at her throat.

The brooch that had held the Ginzuishou reshaped itself as well, improbably extending itself and reshaping itself, until it was a long staff, slightly taller than she was even in these heels, topped with a ball, set with wings to the side and the star symbol atop it.

And opening her eyes, her hair had changed color. Every bit of blonde had leeched out of her hair, leaving it the same shade of brilliant white as Queen Serenity's had been when she met her former mother years ago in the ruins of the White Moon Kingdom. She wondered what Queen Serenity would think of her now if she could see her.

As the light faded from before her eyes, she could see the battle still going on around her. As Usagi, she hadn't been able to do anything to help the rest of her ragtag army. As Sailor Cosmos, however, there was something she could do right now to even things up a bit. She could do the very thing that Usagi was not capable of doing any longer: she could give everyone their powers back.

It barely took a thought. It felt like it was just a matter of reaching into each person's heart simultaneously and unlocking things that never should have been locked away in the first place. She even made a point of doing the same for people she had been able to help as Usagi, now giving them all their old powers back.

It was beautiful, all the colors and powers and abilities floating around her. She glanced up to see Trunks-kun's hair stand straight up and go bright blond; his _ki_ around him immediately took on the same shade. Even she could feel how much more powerful he was. It was the same for Ginji-chan and Ban-san and everyone else; they all felt so much more powerful, and it was amazing.

"Usagi?" She glanced over her shoulder to see Duo-kun looking at her in nothing less than undisguised shock. "What the hell…?"

She offered him a smile. "I think I mentioned a transformation."

"I wasn't expecting anything like this."

She couldn't help it: a giggle escaped her. It actually seemed to relieve Duo-kun to hear it. Then again, this was most assuredly magic, and none of her boys had been overly comfortable with the thought of it, much less seeing it in practice.

He seemed to recover quickly, though, but that was Duo-kun to a 't'. Nothing kept him down for very long, she had noticed. "Heero says the program's running. We'll know in a few minutes if it works."

"It'll work," she stated plainly. "It _will_ work."

It had to work. Otherwise all of this would have been for nothing.

No, she felt something. She wasn't sure what it was she felt, but it was something tickling just beyond the edges of her senses. If she concentrated on it, it felt a lot like Duo-kun and Heero-kun.

So their new world would be Duo-kun's and Heero-kun's. That was fine. That was more than fine. If this huge mass of people ended up in a world, it would help for it to be one where someone at least had some connections, if she properly understood what the Preventers were.

Besides, it made sense. If the Reapers were trying to make a home for themselves in Duo-kun's and Heero-kun's world, then the distance between there and here must be pretty short.

And it really was, now that she actually looked at it. It was so close that she could _almost_ reach out and touch it. Maybe…


	46. Transmit

The time machine started making the oddest sound, sort of a beep that sounded more like 'vworp' and thrummed all the way down to her bones. The whole world shook around it, and it was everything she could do to keep her balance.

Well, that at least was somewhat fixable. She stepped out of the high heels and willed her cape away; a pair of white-feathered wings appeared in its stead. That was good. It certainly presented options. If she felt so inclined, she could join the fight in the skies above them.

It looked like Trunks-kun and their army had the fight well in hand, though, at least the aerial portion of it. There was a suspicious lack of Carrions here. She would have thought that the noise and chaos of the fight would have brought them out in droves. All these people with all their assorted powers and abilities fighting against the Reapers surely should have been like a siren's call for them.

And she shouldn't have even thought that, she considered sourly, staring into the distance south beyond the time machine, because here they were. She hadn't realized that there were so many of them, that they might as well have been legion. There were enough of them to make her want to just sit down and weep.

There was no time for that now, though. "Ban-san, Ginji-chan, Duo-kun," she commented. Once she had their attention, she nodded towards the approaching creatures. "We're about to have guests."

She could have predicted the litany of obscenities both Ban-san and Duo-kun were spewing at a prodigious rate, even as they settled in to prepare a fight again them. There was so many, though. There was no way the three of them would be able to handle the mass.

Apparently Duo-kun had realized that too. "Trunks! We could use some of your fighters right about now!" he called out.

The "shit" she heard from Trunks-kun might have been shocking at any other time, especially since she was pretty sure that this was the first time she had heard him swear. Under the circumstances, though, it was entirely appropriate and utterly expected. She would probably be saying some of the same things, if Ban-san and Duo-kun weren't doing it so well for her. "Carrions coming from the south! We need fighters on the time machine now. If you can't fly or use magic…"

He didn't have to elaborate further. Maybe just under half of their group broke off their attacks, circling around to position themselves between the time machine and the approaching Carrions. It would have to be enough.

Right about now would be the perfect time for the time machine to decide to transport them to where they were supposed to be going, to Duo-kun's and Heero-kun's world. It felt like they were in the middle of making the trip there, and it was making her feel a little ill. Or maybe it was the Carrions or the Reapers. Either way, they needed to step things up a bit sooner rather than later.

Whatever the machine was doing, the ground rumblings were getting stronger and 'vworp' sounds were getting a lot louder. It was either about to blow up or it was going to transmit them any second.

And as if she had asked for it, the scenery around them started to fade. The ruins of the buildings just sort of faded into indistinctness, like an image on a chalkboard being wiped away. Beyond them, she could see new buildings forming. The sky got dimmer, slowly replacing itself with what looked like a mechanical mosaic.

But more than that, she could see the faint image of a Shinto temple, the Imperial palace, a round yellow building with 'CAPSULE CORPORATION' written across it, her own house, and a hundred other buildings.

They were splitting. Either the time machine was more damaged than any of them had expected or maybe there was something Heero-kun had missed in the code or maybe this was the Reapers' doing; she suspected it was the final option there. But if they ended up splitting, then there was no telling where everyone might end up… and that included the Carrions and the Reapers.

None of these worlds, her own included, were ready to deal with the Carrions or the Reapers. That much she knew for certain. On so many of them, she could feel the devastation that they were already suffering; these creatures would destroy them down to the last person.

This was technically going to be a violation of the promise she had made to her boys, but there really wasn't any choice. Something, likely the Reapers, was dragging the transmission off course. If it went on, they were going to be in a lot of trouble, so she was going to have to do something about it, a violation of her promise or not.

She raised her staff in the air and concentrated on the first place she had seen, the one with the mechanical mosaic of a sky, Duo-kun's and Heero-kun's world. The globe on the end of her staff abruptly lit up, nearly blinding in its brilliance.

No matter, though.


	47. Desolate

The world solidified into that first one. She definitely had no been mistaken: the sky was made of metal—and maybe it was weird that that wasn't even the strangest thing about all of this. It was more than just the sky that looked like a machine: she could see a similar material everywhere she looked. It seemed to be beyond all the buildings in every direction.

So this was a… colony, if that was what Duo-kun and Heero-kun had called it? It seemed so… empty, so… desolate. But hadn't Duo-kun said something about it being abandoned? Before the Reapers started making claims on it? Had it been abandoned before or after the Reapers?

This really wasn't the time for observation. A quick glance around seemed to confirm that she had managed to grab everyone to bring them here: friend and foe. And okay, yeah, she definitely could have left the Reapers and Carrions behind, but there had been no good way to do that without leaving part of her army behind. There was no way to do that she was willing to risk doing that. She wasn't willing to leave anyone behind on that forsaken world.

Not that this desolate place was much better, so far as she could tell yet. They would make it work, though, but first impressions and all…

No one else seemed to be distracted in the least from the change in scenery. No, they were all most assuredly distracted by other things. In a word: fighting. From the hodge-podge collection of comments she had gleaned about the Saiyajin from Trunks-kun, it was no surprise that that was what he was currently occupied with. It was also no surprise that Duo-kun was taking one steady shot after another on the approaching Carrions or that Heero-kun was still steadily typing, even though they were at their destination. Maybe there were still more steps involved to make sure they were in this world for good.

And her eyes could barely follow Trunks-kun as he shot all over the sky, trying to stay ahead of the Reapers. That she had expected. What she hadn't expected was that she was having a similarly difficult time trying to keep Ban-san in her line of sight. It was amazing. She felt so much more powerful, but there were so many powerful fighters here with so many different kinds of fighting.

And somehow she had been one of the ones to bring them all together. It was all too amazing to be believed.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Trunks-kun deliver a brutal backhand to one of the Reapers, and it hit the ground hard enough for her to feel it through her bare feet. Duo-kun turned calmly and put a bullet through what would have been its head. It didn't move again. Duo-kun aimed a quick thumbs up at Trunks-kun, who returned it just as quickly before turning to the next Reaper in the sky.

There weren't as many as there had been only a few minutes before. That was probably a good thing. It looked like they had managed to take a few of the creatures.

Too bad the Carrions weren't as willing to go down. She had been watching Ban-san and Duo-kun. It seemed that every time they got one of the things down, presumably dead or at the very least unconscious, it would be right back up again only moments later. They didn't stay down. They didn't stay dead. There were whole litanies of things not right about that.

Still, that was against physical attacks. Their magic users, excepting her and Sylphiel-san, were still tied up against the Reapers. Maybe magic could make the difference against the Carrions?

She raised her staff and set her sight on them in preparation of an attack…

…and that was odd…

She hadn't noticed it until she really focused on them, but the Carrions had the same connections to other worlds that her allies had. It was a lot fainter, probably why she hadn't seen it until now, but the connections were indeed still there.

_I never asked what happened to anyone who died of something other than being eaten by the Carrions._

That was a horrifying thought. All those people who had just vanished, all the people who had died in the first assault on the Reapers, anyone who might have just died of old age… Was it possible that _that_ is where the Carrions came from?

Was it possible that the Carrions were people who were brought to that old world, the world they had just left, for their powers… and then kept to be what amounted to a boogie man for the remaining people, maybe even controlled in death by the Reapers?

They _were_ called Carrions, after all. Didn't 'carrion' mean… something to do with dead things? She couldn't remember exactly, but it seemed right.

It seemed beyond comprehension, but maybe it was possible, as terrifying as the thought might have been. Why put anything past the Reapers, after all? She had known before this fight that they were monsters. Maybe they were bigger monsters than she had previously realized.

She chose a Carrion at random, one near the rear of the assault, and used what she could feel of those connections to other worlds and her own magic from the Ginzuishou within her to _tug_ at the creature. The Ginzuishou whispered about its need to _fix_ , to _heal_ , to… _resurrect_.

She let it.

The globe on top of her staff lit up brilliantly before a soft light escaped from it, rushing rapidly across the distance, shaped like something between a cloud and some of Ginji-chan's lightning, enveloping the Carrion she had selected. She could barely keep up with what the Ginzuishou in her mind said it was doing, but she got something about cutting connections to the Reapers and healing and returning flesh to the age it had been when it arrived on that strange world.

When the light pulled back mere seconds later, a red-haired man with a cross-shaped across one cheek in an old fashioned _kimono_ stood in its place.

Oh God… She had been right. The Carrions used to be people.


	48. Bounce

The Carrions used to be people. They _all_ used to be people.

The Reapers had to be doing something to keep them alive. Well, not alive, not really; she didn't think any living being could stand up to one of Duo-kun's bullet to the head nor one of Ban-san's vicious assaults or Ginji-chan's lightning or some combination of the three; but keep them moving? Now that she definitely could believe.

If she could repeat what she just did with the scarred red-haired man with the rest of the Carrions… Well, they probably wouldn't have new allies against the Reapers, not given the fact the man in question seemed a half second from passing out; from exhaustion or the magic she didn't know. At the very least, though, they wouldn't have as many enemies to face.

There were too many of them to do individually. Duo-kun and Ban-san and their other fighters would be overrun before she could manage to change each Carrion in turn. She was going to have to figure out how to do all of them in one fell swoop. Somehow…

And she had no idea how.

Well, no, that wasn't exactly true. She had some vague idea how to do it. It would be like what she had just done with the one Carrion she had changed, but it would have to be on a much, much grander scale.

This was going to suck in the worst way possible, but if she somehow managed to succeed, then it could turn the entire fight back in their favor.

 _I want to heal them all. I want to heal all the Carrions, return them to who and what they were when the Reapers took them_ , she whispered in her mind to the Ginzuishou.

She could feel it thinking, considering… then agreeing. Once more, she lifted her staff, once more she directed her power, and one more the globe atop her staff lit up brilliantly. This time, though, it was much, much larger, the light wrapping itself around each and every Carrion in sight. It was like the light was sentient, like it had a mind of its own, yet at the same time, she was controlling it.

When the light faded, hundreds of people collapsed to the ground. She had been right then: all the Carrions had once been people. There wasn't a single one that hadn't changed in some way.

She found herself standing on suddenly unsteady legs, though. Before they could give out from under her, she sank down to one knee. It was better to do it now, while she could control it, than drop uncontrollably later.

A controlled collapse was better, at least, than passing out, she decided, even as she felt the wings disappear and the cape return. And she had thought she'd overdone it before. This felt nothing like that had.

Of course, a large part of last time had been the Reapers' poison. She was more exhausted now than she had been then, but all the accompanying ailments—the chills and such—were blissfully absent now. She could live with that. She could definitely live with that.

She could hear someone—two people—barking orders. Opening eyes that she didn't remember closing, she was pretty sure she was seeing Duo-kun and Ban-san bossing around part of her ragtag little army. That was fine: it looked as though they were sending the half that had been preparing for the Carrions back to Trunks-kun.

Speaking of Trunks-kun… There were _a lot_ fewer Reapers than there had been to begin with. By her count, Trunks-kun's band had taken out over half of them, if Duo-kun's original guess of twenty to thirty was correct: there were nine Reapers still in the air.

 _Eight_ , she correct, as a well placed punch and burst of golden light—ki _attack_ , she corrected herself—dropped another, allowing Duo-kun to put a finalizing bullet in that one's head area as well.

 _Good_ , she thought, much more viciously than she could remember ever before being, _then there's no chance of another attack out of that one._ Honestly, she couldn't find it in herself to care if the Reapers were completely annihilated this morning or not, not after what those creatures had done to her people… not to mention what they had done to the people who had until very recently been Carrions.

No, if the Reapers were utterly wiped out here and now today, she wouldn't lose a moment's sleep over it. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

But that was Trunks-kun and Duo-kun accounted for. So where was Heero-kun?

"Are you all right?"

And that was Heero-kun's voice, close to her ear, close enough that she could feel his breath moving her hair.

Good, then that was all of them accounted for. She could breathe a little easier knowing they were all here and all right.

"How are we doing?" she asked instead of answering. From the look Heero-kun shot her, he didn't exactly appreciate that fact. Well, it wasn't a question she was certain she knew the answer to.

"There aren't any more Carrions, we seem to be on colony, and there are five—four—Reapers left." It was a pretty dry recitation, but still, it was definitely good news. She would take dry good news over any other option available right now. "Now, are you all right, Usagi?"

She took a quick but careful stock of herself. "I'm tired. I definitely overdid it a bit, but I'm okay. Just tired is all."

From the expression on his face, it looked like Heero-kun was thinking of a few dozen responses to that, none of which were complementary. Instead, he asked, "And what about this?"

She glanced down to his hand holding a thick section of her hair. She had seen Heero-kun touching her hair a hundred times since all this started. It was a little startling to see how pale, how utterly bleached out and white, it was now compared to then, compared to only earlier this morning.

Her voice was soft as she answered, "Permanent, I think, and not entirely unexpected. My mother's hair was this color." Queen Serenity's had been at least, not Mama's. It was still confusing after all these years. Now for the harder part. "I'm… I'm sorry, Heero-kun. I did a bit more with the Ginzuishou and my power than I meant to. I did a lot more than I promised I would."

"I'm leaving that to Duo and Trunks. They'll have plenty to say on it, I'm sure." All the same, though, he put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her close to his body. "I'm… glad you're all right, Usagi."

A thought had been brewing in the back of her mind since the battle started, and she finally let herself give voice to it. "There's one more thing I want to do before this is all over, Heero-kun."

Bright blue eyes met her own, his expression carefully blank. "What's that?" And he sounded just as cautious as he looked, probably not the best sign.

"I can't send anybody home, back to their own worlds, even with the power I have now. I want to give them—the ones who want to, I mean—the chance to say goodbye." She paused to take a deep breath before pushing on. "I want to give Trunks-kun the chance to say goodbye."

Because they were going to be stuck here… She rather thought that everyone deserved the chance to say goodbye to the people they had left behind. Maybe not _everyone_ they had left behind, but one person? One person she should be able to do. After all her little ragtag army had done and been through, this seemed a trivial thing, but it was something. Surely Heero-kun could understand that she had to do _something_ at this point.

"Will it exhaust you even more than you already are?"

And that was the sticker, because she wasn't going to lie about this. "Yes, it will. I can't lie there. I don't think it'll be nearly as hard as everything I've done so far, though."

Heero-kun was silent for what felt like several long moments—but was probably just a few seconds—as he considered this. Finally, he answered, speaking slowly and carefully. "Duo and Relena—a friend of ours—have said a lot to me about closure. This seems like this would be a good thing, for you and for Trunks. I won't stop you. Just wait until the battle is done."

She nodded easily. "Of course. No one needs a distraction right now."

"And if you haven't done it already—and I can't believe I'm suggesting you do _more_ with that damn Ginzuishou thing—you need to make sure we're all literally speaking the same language before the Reapers are gone."

"Crap." She had actually managed to forget about that. Of all the things for her to flake out on, it had to be something important like that. "It's English here, right? This _is_ your world."

"It's English."

It was a small thing to do, to twist everyone's mind _just so_ , so that everyone was speaking and hearing English as their own language of choice/origin at the appropriate times… and the same version of English at that. It was a small thing, yes, but it was still not easy and it left her shaking in Heero-kun's arms. And wasn't that an amazing thing? She could have sworn a couple of days ago that he hated her, but now… Now was something else altogether. She could definitely live with now.

Without warning, the world seemed to shake—no, _bounce_ —around them. It was everything she could do to keep balanced on her knees, even with Heero-kun's arms around her holding her steady.

"What the—" she started to demand, when another vibration shook the words out of her once again.

"The last of the Reapers is dead." And Heero-kun didn't need to sound quite so shocked about that. Personally, she had had some level of faith that her little ragtag army could pull this off. Okay, in truth, she had had faith that Trunks-kun could pull this off; she hadn't been too certain about the people they had fighting with them.

Wait a minute... The Reapers... "The Reapers are all dead?" Heero-kun nodded solemnly.

Then it was over.

They had won.


	49. Garden

Frankly, she wasn't too sure what to think yet. If the Reapers were gone and this was all over... then what? What came next? As far as she knew, there was nothing written after this point.

It just didn't seem possible for it to be over. It had seemed like such long odds going into this fight that it didn't seem like it should be over already. Of course, she had no real way of telling just how long it had been, but it didn't feel like that. And it also felt like it had been forever. Battles tended to be like that, in her estimation, from her experience.

And yet, somehow, despite the impossible odds, they had pulled out ahead. They had managed to scrape out a win. And yes, now that she looked, she did see some of their people were down. No one she recognized, so probably not anyone she had given powers to as Usagi, but there was no guarantee on that. Even if she didn't recognize them, her heart still broke a bit. It was hard taking people into battle, knowing not all of them would come back alive.

But she had made a decision earlier with Heero-kun, and there was no time like now to go for it. After this, though, she was going to pack up her powers and not use them again for as long as she could. She needed a break. She needed a break and her boys.

The links everyone had to their original worlds were already starting to fade, so it really was now or never.

Later on, she would never be able to say what it was she had done to connect all those people to someone close to them again. She wouldn't even be able to describe what it felt like or what she had overheard. There were quick snippets: "Yue, I..." "Akane-san..." "Kazu-chan..." "Kaasan, it's me..."

She did remember that last bit, mostly because it was Trunks-kun's voice and, more than anything else, that meant she had done it: she had managed to successfully connect everyone with someone from his or her own world. It meant she had done it after all. It meant she had done it and she could relax now.

Well, no, actually she couldn't. Not yet.

_"Usagi-chan?"_

Of all the Sailor Senshi, she had had her own ideas about which ones she was close enough with to reach for this. She knew it was going to be either Minako-chan or Rei-chan. Given Rei-chan's abilities, she had been fairly certain that she would be who Usagi managed to reach. It was Minako-chan's voice she was hearing in her mind, though. That worked just as well for her purposes.

 _"Hey there, Minako-chan,"_ she returned.

_"Oh my God, Usagi-chan! I—We thought—Are you all right? Where are you? Are you coming home? You are all right, aren't you?!"_

And that was all a bit more overwrought than she would have expected for Minako-chan, even with her sudden disappearance. It was actually pretty close to hysterical, and that didn't make a lot of sense. Minako-chan could be one of the coolest heads in a crisis that she knew, given her time both as Sailor V and Sailor Venus.

What was going on here?

 _"I'm okay."_ She deliberately worked her hardest to keep her exhaustion from leaking through into the conversation, such as it was. _"I promise I'm okay, Minako-chan, but… I'm not coming home. I can't come home."_

_"You have to, Usagi-chan! I mean… it's been almost two years since you vanished, and we hadn't heard anything form you, and everyone's still looking for you. Mamoru-san has been frantic. We all have been!"_

Two… years? But… _"It's only been two weeks here…"_ she numbly returned. Two weeks on that strange other world was two years on her own world. That was just too bizarre for words. _"It's only been two weeks, not two years."_

_"Trust me, Usagi-chan: it's been two years. You have to come home."_

She found herself shaking her head, even though presumably Minako-chan would never be able to see it. _"I_ can't _, Minako-chan. I can't. You have to believe me."_

She could almost hear the other blonde girl take a deep breath and slowly let it out. _"Why not, Usagi-chan? What's going on?"_

_"These creatures grabbed me at the airport—that's the last thing on our world I remember, after all—and brought me to this strange world. I was there two weeks before we beat the Reapers. We're all on a different world now, but I can't move to another one again. It's too much for me to do again."_

Slowly, reluctantly, she could feel Minako-chan beginning to come around. _"So there's no way for you to come back at all then, Usagi-chan?"_

 _"I don't know of any way, Minako-chan. It's beyond me and the Ginzuishou now, and I don't think Setsuna-san can get here. And… I'm… I don't I want to leave here. Not now."_ She didn't know how much longer she would have two of her boys, now that they were all in Heero-kun and Duo-kun's own world, but she definitely still had Trunks-kun, and there was no way she was giving him up so easily. Not now.

And that was funny: she could almost _feel_ Minako-chan's interest perk. _"Oh? Do tell, Usagi-chan."_

Cautiously—she didn't know what she was doing, and she didn't want to accidentally hurt Minako-chan in doing this—she tried to send the other blonde a mental image of Trunks-kun. _"I'm not leaving Trunks-kun."_

 _"Damn, Usagi-chan."_ And that sounded appreciative enough that, if Trunks-kun had been able to hear it, he definitely would have gone blood red. _"You did damn good. I want details. I want all the dirty details. It's been two years, and I need gossip. Gimme!"_

And that was the Minako-chan she remembered so well: always a virtual garden of irreverent thoughts about exceptional members of the opposite sex. It was good—it was _so_ good—to know that some things never really changed at all. No matter what the circumstances and no matter what world she was on, her friendship with Minako-chan was always going to stay the same.

She relayed everything she felt comfortable sharing, which was to say almost everything, even as she felt herself starting to grow even more tired than she had been before. Finally, she made herself peter out the girl talk.

 _"Minako-chan?"_ She paused until she heard an acknowledging sound from her friend. _"I—I can't hold this much longer. I need to go. Tell everyone…"_ What could she have Minako-chan tell them that would be appropriate? _"Tell them I love them and I'll miss them, but I'm in a good place. Tell them everything will be okay. Tell them goodbye for me."_

It sounded so final, saying it like that, but it was the truth: she didn't think she could move even a single other person through the worlds again, let alone all of them. She would miss her old friends, but it was time for the next chapter of her life to start.

After knowing her future—Crystal Tokyo, Neo Queen Serenity, and all the rest of it—for so long, it was weird moving towards a brand new, unknown future.

She was looking forward to it.


	50. Writer's Choice: Recovery

Well, she had certainly called it right: Duo-kun and Heero-kun had no sooner announced their return and some of the situation to their superior, a woman named Une, than it felt like ships of people started showing up. They had all ended up getting a crash course on what exactly a colony was—more or less, an independent space station united under the Earth Sphere Unified Nation—once some of the other Preventers had showed up.

There had been no way to _not_ tell Une-san about everything, not if they were going to come up with something to explain this sudden huge influx of people. Granted, Usagi wasn't terribly certain she actually remembered their cover story: it was either something to do with a cult or perhaps there was something about a top-secret military experiment or a… something. Really, she couldn't remember all the details. Trunks-kun probably did remember all of it, and that was good enough for her.

Besides, she usually had her hands full trying to keep the people she had brought to this world in line. For some reason, most of them still deferred to her on almost everything. Even Une-san generally contacted her on anything to do with the colony. It was a bit like being a town mayor, she thought, only without the benefits or cushy paycheck.

Better to be somewhat in charge of a colony, she thought, than to be the Queen of Crystal Tokyo. It wasn't the first time she had thought that, and it probably wouldn't be the last. At least being somewhat in charge of a colony of people wasn't always a full-time gig; she was able to have most nights off, which was good.

Of course, Trunks-kun was usually pretty busy too. If people deferred to her on day-to-day matters, they often went to Trunks-kun with anything to do with security. Apparently, the two of them had made quite the impression on everyone in those couple of meetings at Sylphiel-san's home.

That was all well and good, she supposed, but she really would have preferred to have a little bit more time for just her and Trunks-kun. If Duo-kun and Heero-kun were going to be gone as long as she feared they would—and as often as she feared they would, with still be full-time members of the Preventers—then she at least wanted to be able to spend time with Trunks-kun.

They had been on this world— _on this colony,_ she corrected herself—for a few months now. It seemed like things should be starting to settle down. Une-san had arranged formal identities for them before a fortnight was out, so that was that dealt with easily enough, at least on her end of things; she didn't know if it was difficult for Une-san to arrange that. The woman had never said if it was or wasn't.

It had been no surprise to her that most of the people who had been couples on that weird world had gotten together and demanded the means to get married once the legalities of identities were taken care of. Une-san had come through on that as well, which had been good. There might have been riots otherwise, and that was something she really didn't want to see any time soon.

Especially since she had made a point of leaving everyone's powers as they were. From what she could tell, there weren't a lot of people with any kind of powers here. In fact, the only one she had heard of was a friend of Duo-kun's and Heero-kun's, a Quatre something or other, who apparently could feel other people's pain. Her people seemed to be on a whole other level from that. The lack of riots really was for the best.

She and Trunks-kun had talked it over a few times since then, even if Trunks-kun did seem to have a tendency to turn a heretofore-undiscovered shade of red at the topic of marriage. At the last discussion, with Duo-kun and Heero-kun conferencing in from somewhere a lot closer to Earth than they currently were, the decision had been made that it would be best if the two couples were both separately married but the four of them know they were together… at least as much as was possible when half of them were literally millions of kilometers away.

The word 'eventually' had come up plenty of times in all the discussions about getting married. Certainly she was in no rush on the matter.

In truth, though, if she spent too many more nights dreaming about ChibiUsa… Well… Too many more nights of this, and she would end up asking Une-san to send someone to this colony with pink baby clothes as soon as humanly possible.

After all, if once was happenstance and twice was coincidence and thrice was enemy action, then what did twenty-three times mean?

* * *

 _Twenty-three times means getting married in a hurry,_ she thought wryly to herself not even a month later, _before I start to show_.

At least Duo-kun and Heero-kun had been able to make it to the wedding, such as it was. She had to say that she rather preferred the rather subdued ceremony that had been cobbled together for the people of this colony to the huge production that would have happened should she have eventually married Mamo-chan. This was smaller and more intimate—and a large-scale thing wouldn't have been right for her and Trunks-kun. A couple of 'I do's and rings were enough for the two of them.

But at least it was over and done with. And her other two boys had followed suit immediately afterwards, so that was done too.

And maybe that was the wrong way to think of it, but it worked. Besides, it was a little amusing to think back on the look the Justice had been wearing. Not many people in this world looked like she and Trunks-kun did, and an official coming from Earth probably didn't expect a girl with white hair and a guy with purple hair to be the ones more or less in charge of this colony. And then there was also Duo-kun. Apparently, a fresh-off-the-shuttle Duo-kun was a hyper as everything Duo-kun.

That was something she was going to have to remember for future reference.

But for now, she and Heero were curled up around each other on the overstuffed couch, sitting quietly and watching Duo-kun and Trunks-kun catch up on everything that had happened since the last time the two of them were on colony, a few months ago. Duo-kun and Heero-kun had apparently been busy: she had learned quickly that only about half of what they did could be repeated to people without ridiculously high military clearance. The half that Trunks-kun and she got to hear was both plenty and hair-raising enough. She didn't want to think too much about the other half.

Whatever story Duo-kun was telling Trunks-kun had brought a smirking grin to her husband's—and she was never going to get tired of saying that or hearing that or even just thinking that, _her_ _husband_ —face.

She wasn't going to say that this was perfect. It wasn't. Part of her was always going to miss her Senshi and her family. Part of her was always going to wish there was a way to get Trunks-kun's mother here to meet her grandchild. Part of her was always going to wonder what might have been had the Reapers not interfered with all their lives like they had. Part of her would probably always hate it when Duo-kun and Heero-kun had to leave for a mission that could take days or weeks or months… or even longer.

But it was good enough. In a few months, she would have her daughter, and for right now, she had her boys.

It was a good place to start.


End file.
